Expect more Nickelodeon after NFL playoff broadcast ‘exceeded every expectation’

Will the Slime be unleashed again on NFL viewers?  

Well, the one clear takeaway from the Nickelodeon and ViacomCBS partnership to broadcast the Saints and Bears on Sunday is that CBS Sports executives and production people were blown away by the positive response, particularly on social media. 

“I’d love to see it done again for the championship game,” said Suzanne Smith, the longtime CBS Sports director who directed the Nickelodeon broadcast Sunday. “Of course, the ultimate would be to do it for the Super Bowl. But it took a tremendous amount of work to get to this point. We worked on it for months and months. The way the technology works, I don’t think it’s something that you could do every week. But from all accounts, it was an enormous success. Everybody was happy about it.

“We tried to incorporate a lot more the human side of it for kids. I thought we did a good job weaving all of that in in addition to televising the football game. We took a lot of the regular broadcast coverage and supplemented it with what we were doing. The technology of it was amazing. I have to give credit to the engineers and the geniuses who did stuff way above my head. I mean, we had slime coming down on people on live television.”

Beyond the fun of the broadcast, there was more at play here. CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus told The Athletic last month that the idea was borne in a ViacomCBS financial meeting in early 2020 on what to bid and how to bid for one of the wild-card games. CBS Sports president David Berson suggested at the meeting the idea of pitching the NFL on an additional broadcast that was kid-centric, which fit into the large pitch that the combined ViacomCBS assets would increase the NFL’s reach beyond just carrying the game on the CBS Broadcast Network. ViacomCBS also believed it could benefit from Nickelodeon having worked with the NFL in the past on kid-centric Super Bowl programming. 

“The NFL is very intent on reaching a younger audience, and we thought this would be a great way to do it,” McManus said. “When we went in to give our pitch to the NFL, this was front and center in that pitch. They loved it right at the outset. I don’t know how big a factor it was in us being successful in acquiring the wild-card game, but I think it certainly played a part.”

How could a network such as Nickelodeon factor into future NFL rights negotiations? Lee Berke, a longtime sports TV consultant, who has clients across NFL, MLB, NBA. NCAA, NHL and NASCAR, thought it could be game-changing. 

“The Nick game was a huge step forward in production creativity,” Berke said. “Yes, it’s part of the Megacast strategy which works well for major events like the CFP, but the Nick game potentially revamps rights negotiations as well. If a media company can tap into other networks and younger audiences as part of their rights bids, it can offer up additional revenues and new generations of fans that every sports property is looking for.”

Berke said he is particularly curious about the ratings demos and viewership information for the Nickelodeon broadcast. 

“If the ratings and demos for the game look good, you could see one or more additional NFL/Nick games before the postseason concludes,” Berke said. “Then, what about the NBA, MLB and NHL? Each has media partners that can provide kid-friendly networks for branded multi casts, particularly when streaming can be included as part of the mix. It just takes, as SpongeBob would say, ‘imagination.’”

On that note, take this as one small example. Nickelodeon drove people to its website to vote for the NVP (Nickelodeon Valuable Player). If you are a sports league, think of the online terrain that exists for you to introduce your game to young people. That’s valuable real estate. (This is independent of a larger discussion on what age is appropriate to introduce football to kids and how you don’t glamorize on-field violence.)

Smith has directed sporting events for 30 years and never had an experience like the one she did in New Orleans.  

“You think about a lot of things that you’re going to do in your career, and I have to be honest about it: This was not one of them,” she said. “But when I heard about the assignment, I was super excited about it. When I first met with our talent in rehearsal, I told them I had done a lot in my career. I’ve worked on some Super Bowls. I’ve worked on the Olympics. I told them I was more excited about doing this game than anything that I can remember. And that was honestly true. It was just so different and brought in a different audience. Mostly, everything was just so positive about it. The energy for it was just really, really good.”

Ultimately, what matters is how ViacomCBS brass feel about the broadcast. I spoke late Sunday night to McManus to get his thoughts on the broadcast. 

“I thought it was going to be cool and fun to watch, but it exceeded every expectation that I had,” said McManus. “The graphics, the announcers, it was all amazing. They were able to gear the telecast to a younger audience while still making it really fun to watch for the traditional football fan. It was done in such a creative and fun way that was enjoyable to watch. It was a great showcase for the depth and breadth of our company.”

What about repeating the process for this postseason or next year?

“I don’t think we’ve crossed that bridge yet,” McManus said. “I think we’re going to take a look at it this week and make decisions going forward. Nothing has been talked about the future yet. We’ll do that in the coming weeks.”

Here’s a prediction on that note: Sports television rarely passes up an opportunity to repeat a successful experiment, especially given the overwhelming social media sentiment (which networks pay attention to more than they let on). Look for SpongeBob Sports Pants to return to your screen sooner than later.

(Photo: Tyler Kaufman / AP Photo)