Slime Time: Saints vs Bears Wildcard Game to Air On Nickelodeon

As we enjoy the first round of the NFL playoffs this weekend, I think we can all admit that this season has been pretty unique, if not outright strange.
Thanks to the pandemic, there was no preseason, multiple games were played on Tuesdays, there were limited, and usually, zero, fans at stadiums, and often teams were forced to play without key players and coaches. On top of that, the league added a 7th playoff team in each conference, a welcome development that made the #1 seed (with a bye) more important than ever and gave us a total of 6 games on wildcard weekend, with an extra game to watch yesterday and today.
In perhaps the strangest twist of all, one of those games is being televised on Nickelodeon!
This afternoon’s game between the 7th-seeded Chicago Bears and 2nd-seeded New Orleans Saints, which will be played at 4:30PM ET, will be broadcast on both CBS and Nickelodeon, the kids’ channel most known for cartoons, You Can’t Do That On Television, and slime.
Noah Eagle, the son of longtime broadcaster Ian Eagle, will be calling the game, alongside former NFL player Nate Burleson and Nick stars Gabrielle Nevaeh Green and Lex Lumpkin, and he explained some of the tweaks fans can expect.
“This is a perfect opportunity to captivate a new audience of sports fans and football fans, while being a family friendly broadcast, so that the family can watch it all as a single unit, and have fun,” Eagle told CBS Sports. “It’s going to be a blend of sports, entertainment, laughs, joy, all of the above, and we’re expecting a good game as well, which doesn’t hurt.”
The idea is to focus on the “fun” and “light” aspects of the game to appeal to younger generations, and get kids interested in the so-called “no fun league.” The broadcast team is going to shy away from hardcore-football facts and instead share kid-friendly news, like players’ favorite ice-cream flavors.
There may even be a little slime!
“I fully expect to get slimed in a sense that I’m going to be like a coach where you just don’t see it coming … But I’ve told some other people that I may need to bring a shower cap, because I take my hair very seriously.”