Bill Simmons persevered in quest to watch Royal Rumble on ESPN Unlimited

The Royal Rumble is one of the few WWE Premium Live Events (PLEs) that tend to attract casual viewers. As is often the case, many of those fans wait until the day of to figure out how to watch it.

Back in the day, it was simple. You just buy it on pay-per-view. In recent years, it has bounced between streaming services, initially on WWE Network, then on Peacock, and eventually on Netflix.

This year’s version was the first to air on ESPN Unlimited, ESPN’s direct-to-consumer streaming service. Additionally, the event took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which meant an earlier start time.

Those two changes were a recipe for disaster for casual viewers, as determining who has access to ESPN Unlimited and who doesn’t remains murky unless you’ve done your homework on how your particular cable package, bundle, or streaming service subscription works.

That invariably led to a lot of frustrated wrestling fans on Saturday as they logged on and expected to be able to easily watch the Royal Rumble, only to learn that there was either an extra step or an extra cost, or both.

That includes The Ringer’s Bill Simmons. His relationship with ESPN has been touchy for some time now, and the confusion over how to watch this WWE event didn’t do much to mend any fences.

Saturday afternoon, the former ESPN talent took to X to bemoan the situation he seemed to have found himself in as he attempted to watch the Royal Rumble. As an apparant Spectrum subscriber who was paying for ESPN+ and Hulu, he couldn’t figure out why he didn’t have access.

So if you’re…
—Already paying for all ESPN channels on cable thru Spectrum.
—Already paying 130 a year for ESPN+
—Already paying for Hulu.

You can’t buy Royal Rumble w/o also signing up for an ESPN Unlimited/Hulu bundle for 36 a month?

And THEN the Rumble is 29.99?

Huh???

— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) January 31, 2026

He then encountered an all-too-common scenario for streaming service subscribers: trying to figure out why your current subscription grants you access to some content but not others, in what seems like an arbitrary way.

So Hulu Unlimited (no ads) is 19 dollars a month.

You can bundle Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN Unlimited all with ads for 36 a month. You’d lose Hulu Unlimited and no ads.

But if you want to keep Hulu Unlimited and add ESPN Unlimited to it, you get this. 😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/KyKd3LEly5

— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) January 31, 2026

Almost an hour after his initial post, the Ringer boss figured it out.

Finally figured it out… had to go into Spectrum, then activate the ESPN Unlimited bundle to my existing ESPN package.

ESPN tried to break me and get me to panic-bundle and I out-thought them. You couldn’t break me ESPN! pic.twitter.com/hq5beGC8sn

— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) January 31, 2026

“Finally figured it out… had to go into Spectrum, then activate the ESPN Unlimited bundle to my existing ESPN package,” he wrote on X. “ESPN tried to break me and get me to panic-bundle, and I out-thought them. You couldn’t break me ESPN!”

Depending on your familiarity with how these things work, you might have had one of two reactions. For those well-versed in the ways of streaming bundles, this was a fairly obvious solution. But for those who don’t have the time or inclination to care about these things, it’s understandable, confusing, and frustrating.