The winner of the event is the last wrestler remaining after all others have been eliminated. The Royal Rumble is based on the classic Battle Royal match, in which a number of wrestlers (traditionally 30) aim at eliminating their competitors by tossing them over the top rope, with both feet touching the floor. Since 2019, the Royal Rumble has been usually held in baseball stadiums. The 2018 Royal Rumble was the first to include a women's Royal Rumble match, which was the main event for that year it is now standard for the event to include a men's and women's match. The 2008 Royal Rumble was the first WWE pay-per-view to be available in high-definition.
Due to the Rumble match taking up a large amount of time (most Rumble matches last roughly one hour), the Rumble event tends to have a smaller card than most other pay-per-view events, which routinely have six to eight matches per card. The men's Royal Rumble match is usually located at the top of the card, though there have been exceptions, such as the 1988, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2006, 2013, and 2018 events. In October 2021, Money in the Bank would be grouped in with the four, now the "Big Five", as WWE President and Chief Revenue Officer Nick Khan referred to Money in the Bank as one of the company's "five annual tentpoles". The following year, the event started to be broadcast on pay-per-view and thus became one of WWE's "big four" pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, Survivor Series, and SummerSlam.
The first Royal Rumble event took place on January 24, 1988, and was broadcast live on the USA Network. The Royal Rumble is a pay-per-view consisting of the Royal Rumble match, title matches, and various other matches.