General view of the Super Bowl LVIII logo. Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Wacky Nickelodeon Super Bowl stream scored with viewers

By Kari Anderson | Last updated 2/13/24

Sunday's Super Bowl broadcast broke records, garnering 123.4 million viewers across CBS and its subsidiaries.

Although the bulk (120 million) watched the game on CBS and Paramount+, more than a million of those viewers watched the game from an unusual spot: "under the sea."

CBS ran a simulcast of Super Bowl LVIII on Nickelodeon, hosted by SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star and set in the famous sponge's home of Bikini Bottom. As reported by Forbes, the Nickelodeon stream averaged between 1.2 million and 1.75 million viewers, based on ratings from Nielsen and iSpot, and likely peaked even higher.

Nickelodeon and its channels have decreased in popularity in recent years, so this Super Bowl served as a major boost for the kids network. According to Nielsen ratings, Nickelodeon averaged 190,000 viewers in 2023, while Nick@Nite (Nickelodeon's nighttime programming) averaged 245,000 viewers during primetime.

The wacky Super Bowl broadcast featured some of the network's most famous characters. Along with SpongeBob and Patrick as hosts, Bikini Bottom's favorite squirrel, Sandy Cheeks, acted as a sideline reporter. (She also showed some bias toward quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who was born and raised in Sandy's home state of Texas.)

Cameo from our favorite sideline reporter, Sandy Cheeks ️

: #SBLVIII on Nickelodeon pic.twitter.com/AHzJBfyZD7
— NFL (@NFL) February 12, 2024

Meanwhile, Dora the Explorer acted as a rules expert: "Where are we going? Back five yards!" Dora and her monkey Boots told viewers after a false-start penalty.

The stream also featured underwater celebrities (and some well-placed fish puns), such as "Olivia Codrigo," "Dua Flipa," "Megan Thee Sturgeon," "Shrimpothée Chalamet" and many more.

These fish puns are getting out of hand

: #SBLVIII on Nickelodeon pic.twitter.com/XAjUMNH7Mg
— NFL (@NFL) February 12, 2024

SpongeBob and Patrick's voice actors — Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke — used motion capture to play out their characters live on air, providing commentary and jokes for several hours during the game.

Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke with their vtuber setup for the Nickelodeon Super Bowl broadcast (via the official @SpongeBob TikTok account) pic.twitter.com/Jl2UBccb3a
— Nymo (@Nymo) February 12, 2024

The result was a delightfully unhinged and entertaining broadcast — if a little untraditional. Although the viewership didn't make as much of a dent as the traditional CBS broadcast, the sheer social media buzz made the Nickelodeon stream a standout for Sunday's game.

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