Nickelodeon could make these 6 sports even better - SB Nation

The first NFL game broadcast on Nickelodeon was a resounding success. It was the perfect youth-focused presentation to get kids interested in the sport, while filling it with the nostalgic elements adults crave, like slime cannons and references to legendary Nick shows. The only bad thing about the experiment was having Young Sheldon explain penalties, because nobody needs Young Sheldon in their life — but you can’t win them all.

In the wake of Nickelodeon’s success it’s clear we need more of this. Not just from the NFL, but from every major sport. Kids can become more interested in professional sports with programming catered to them, we get to take a break from boring old presentations of games — it’s a win-win.

The NBA

This is the obvious one, right? Kids have a natural proclivity to lean towards basketball because of the constant movement, tricks, and big personality the game brings — so we can lean into that.

Brook and Robin Lopez are the perfect announce team to be paired with some random Nick stars. I know they’re current players, but I don’t care. It makes too much sense. They know and love cartoons, they can absolutely relate to kids, and I’d be hyped for some brotherly banter in the booth.

A Nick presentation would allow for basketball to basically be transformed into NBA Jam. Replays of dunks with slime exploding out of the basket, fire trails on player’s feet, ect. We can have the stands populated with Nick toon stars you’d see all game long and it would be perfect.

I don’t know how well slime cleans off a basketball court, but it’s not really my concern. I need to see James Harden get slimed and learn about the subsequent beard slime removal it necessitates.

The NHL

It’s been said numerous times that hockey has a youth viewership problem. The average age of people who watch the NHL has been steadily climbing, and it desperately needs an injection of youth.

There is literally no reason hockey shouldn’t resonate with kids. It’s fast, it’s exciting, there’s protected violence and ice skating. It’s basically the most Guts-like professional sport already, so why not lean into that?

Bring back the old puck trail we used to see on TV and make it a slime trail. It’ll help people follow the puck, and make the game fun. Have an audio person ready when a fight inevitably happens, and add incredible cartoon sound effects. It’ll lessen the violence, and give us something far more entertaining that watching two grown men circle each other like drunks at a bar looking to pick a fight.

MLB

This is what baseball needs. No sport is bleeding more young viewers than America’s Pastime, and people have been looking for ways to fix it for years. Shorter games seems like a place to start, but purists are concerned it will ruin the sanctity of the sport. I’m not going to wade into who’s right and who’s wrong, but a Nickelodeon broadcast can keep everyone happy.

Let traditional baseball viewers watch in the way that makes them happy, and open up the sport on Nickelodeon. Yes, we’re going to have slime erupt on home runs, that’s a given — but there’s so much room for booth banter that Nick could basically run a show inside a show.

There could be an entire episode of Figure It Out built into the broadcast for down time. Between pitches and innings the booth could hand off to a Nickelodeon panel for sports miscellany and trivia. It opens things up, and would be perfect.

Also, Nick would celebrate bat flips. There would be an award at the end of the game for best bat flip, because bat flips are good.

MMA

Okay, this might not be the best idea because the sport is too violent. I just want blood to be color corrected so peoples’ faces erupt in a plume of slime when they get punched in the face. Is that too much to ask?

Gymnastics

Okay, imagine this: Every floor routine is already set to music. The songs are set ahead of time. What if we had regular floor routines, but musical experts learn how to match traditional songs, and replace them with those from Nick toons?

All I need in my life is Simone Biles doing 150 flips to the tune of the Rocko’s Modern Life theme song.

Soccer

I don’t have any specific sports enhancements. Soccer already rules and kids love it, but I do know that it should be pretty easy to swap the entire pitch so it looks like everyone is playing on slime.

Slime soccer would rule.

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