Nickelodeon and CBS Sports Set Chargers-Texans For NFL Wild Card Game In Bikini Bottom
Who’s ready for more football under the sea?
After holding the Sports Emmy-winning Super Bowl LVIII Live in Bikini Bottom with SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star on the broadcast team to great acclaim, Nickelodeon and CBS Sports are ready to do it all again. Except CBS doesn’t have the Super Bowl this year, and Netflix has firmly grasped Christmas for the immediate future. So Nickelodeon’s NFL altcast has fallen back to the Wild Card round of the playoffs. Why such a hard fall from the championship and not the AFC Divisional or Championship rounds? Who knows, but this is what we have. Even as of Saturday, which broadcast partners got which games wasn’t decided. It wasn’t until after Sunday’s play decided everyone’s seeding that NFL Wild Card Game Live from Bikini Bottom will be the Saturday, 4:30 PM game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Houston Texans on January 11, alongside the main telecast on CBS, one of two games they will be airing.
SpongeBob and Patrick, played by Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke once again in motion capture, with a Kids Choice Awards hosting gig since the last NFL broadcast, will only be joined by CBS Mornings and The NFL Today co-host, Nate Burleson in the booth this go-round, while Sandy Cheeks (voiced by Carolyn Lawrence) and NFL Slimetime's Dylan Schefter return in their roles as sideline reporters. Dora Marquez (voiced by Diana Zermeño) returns for rule and penalty call explanations. The Nick-ified graphics and advanced augmented reality will bring hijinks throughout the game from a group of "Wild Cod," analogous to NFL superfans; the return of the iconic Submarine Blimp, fully equipped to slime the stadium crowd. Character appearances will include the Mutant Mayhem Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, on the field armed with pizza cannons they’ll shoot at the crowd, while the Transformers One iterations of Megatron and Optimus Prime will be fans in the stands with Arnold Shortman and Helga Pataki; Cat and Dog of CatDog; Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Shadow from Sonic the Hedgehog 3; the Loud family, Tiny Chef; Wanda and Cosmo from The Fairly OddParents; Tommy Pickles, Chuckie Finster, and Reptar of Rugrats, and many more through surprise guest appearances. There will be a PAW Patrol-themed "SkyeCam"; and brand-new end zone clam cannons that fire slime, chum, Krabby Patties and more.
"I can't give you all the sauce, but listen, there's going to be a bunch of new additions to our coverage," Burleson, who co-hosts NFL Slimetime and by the end of the week will also be hosting CBS’s Hollywood Squares reboot, told CBSSports.com Monday. "We got everybody from Bikini Bottom. We'll have some Transformers. I'm a big Rugrats fan. I'm 43, but I kind of caught the tail end of Rugrats, and I hear some of the Rugrats are gonna pull up. And then we'll have some other surprise classic characters from the Nickelodeon universe. Marvel's got their universe. DC's got their universe. So why not Nickelodeon? So this is going to be a Nickelodeon universe wild-card game, and I'll be in the booth as a fan and as a play-by-play guy."
An NVP vote will be held on Nickelodeon’s website at Nick.com/NVP. The network’s 2025 slate is pretty much a mystery beyond The Thundermans: Undercover’s new episodes in February at least, and the broadcast doesn’t do much to help. That’s demonstrated by an exclusive sneak peek of Henry Danger: The Movie, which premieres on Friday, January 17, will be shown during halftime. All onscreen personnel will reconvene to relive the top moments in the hourlong highlights special Bikini Bottom Breakdown: NFL Wild Card, premiering Wednesday, January 15, at 8 p.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon, following the Wild Card week edition of NFL Slimetime.
Sources: Press release, CBS Sports