CBS Announces Nickelodeon Broadcast for 2024 NFL Season in Wild Card Playoff Round
August 14, 2024
Get the slime ready because the NFL playoffs are coming back to Nickelodeon.
CBS Sports president David Berson announced on Wednesday that the kid's network will air a wild card playoff game in January.
This will mark the fourth playoff game simulcast on Nickelodeon since the 2020 season. The first one featured the Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints in the NFC Wild Card game in January 2021.
Response to the game was so strong that CBS brought it back the following year for the game between the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys.
Nickelodeon has added Christmas Day games to the schedule in each of the past two seasons. Since CBS had broadcast rights to the Super Bowl last season, the showdown between the 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs was simulcast on Nick.
The 49ers-Chiefs game was billed as Super Bowl LVIII: Live from Bikini Bottom and featured augmented reality effects with Spongebob Squarepants characters.
Other highlights from past Nickelodeon broadcasts include a touchdown replay with Ninja Turtle avatars in place of players and slime cannons when a team finds the end zone.
Nickelodeon @NickelodeonTOUCHDOWN! <a href="https://twitter.com/49ers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@49ers</a> set off the slime cannons at our <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NickWildCard?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NickWildCard</a> game <a href="https://t.co/jTevaZyYx0">pic.twitter.com/jTevaZyYx0</a>
Alternate broadcasts have become a big part of the NFL-watching experience. The Manningcast on ESPN has grown in popularity every year since it debuted during the 2021 season.
The Bears-Saints game in January 2021 marked Nickelodeon's most-watched program in four years. The alternate Super Bowl broadcast between the 49ers and Chiefs in February averaged 1.2 million viewers, more than six times the network's 2023 primetime average (190,000 viewers).
