On March 31, 2020, the NFL announced that a simultaneous, family-friendly alternate telecast of one of their six Wild Card games would air on Nickelodeon.

The league sought to expand its range by getting younger audiences involved in American football, and it still does.

I remember thinking to myself, “How is this even going to look?”

Nine months later, I got my answer.

If you decided to watch the game on CBS, it was mostly a snoozefest; the New Orleans Saints cruised past the Chicago Bears, 21-9.

But if you were tapped into Nickelodeon, you were treated to quite the afternoon.

At the end of the first half in a tightly-contested one-point game, head referee Alex Kemp called Chicago tight end Cole Kmet for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for running out of bounds during a punt.

The actual culprit, Bears special teamer Cordarelle Patterson, wasn’t thrilled about it.

“What the fu*k? I swear that wasn’t me lol,” Patterson posted to X (formerly Twitter) following the game.

But that’s not all. Throughout Nickelodeon’s broadcast, a QR code appeared on the screen that took fans to a page where they could vote on the game’s NVP, Nickelodeon Valuable Player.

At that moment, NFL fans, including me, came together to mock the award.

With a whopping 49% percent of the vote, Chicago quarterback Mitchell Trubisky took home the first-ever NVP award in a game in which the Bears offense could only muster single digits on the scoreboard.

New Orleans head coach Sean Payton agreed to be slimed after his team brought home the victory, and he did exactly that.

Football, slime and unseriousness? This is everything I could’ve ever asked for.

The Nickelodeon telecast returned the following season when the San Francisco 49ers went into Dallas and upset the Cowboys in the opening round of the 2022 NFL playoffs, 19-12.

For the second consecutive year, the NVP was once again the losing team’s quarterback, this time Dallas signal-caller Dak Prescott.

San Francisco tight end George Kittle repeated the same mistake that Patterson made the previous season, letting the emotions of one of the world’s most vicious sports get to him.

As much as Kittle would be a great fit as a voice actor, his career on Nickelodeon might already be over before it even started.

In 2022, the NFL decided to host its first-ever “Nickmas” by broadcasting one of its newly annual Christmas day games on the children’s TV channel.

In the first quarter of the contest, Patrick Star is even brought into the booth to provide his own play-by-play commentary.

It just keeps getting better and better; the energy was too much for Russel Wilson and his team to overcome, as NVP Baker Mayfield led the Los Angeles Rams to a 51-14 bludgeoning of the Denver Broncos.

The league has kept the network around over the years. Former pro-wide-out and current CBS commentator Nate Burleson hosts “NFL Slimetime,” a weekly recap of Sunday’s games tailored to the same genre as the Nickelodeon games: fun, fast-paced and something constantly moving on the screen, even between plays.

While Super Bowl LVIII was broadcasted on the network’s parent company, CBS, it was simultaneously telecasted on Nickelodeon.

I don’t think your life will ever be complete until you hear SpongeBob and Patrick call a walk-off, game-winning touchdown in the Super Bowl.

The NFL hosted its latest Nickelodeon telecast last month when the Los Angeles Chargers traveled to NRG Stadium to play the Houston Texans in the opening matchup of Super Wild Card Weekend.

At the beginning of the second quarter, Los Angeles had grabbed a 6-0 lead before disaster struck: Dirty Bubble captured Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh.

Once Dirty Bubble had kidnapped Harbaugh, it was too late: Los Angeles quarterback Justin Herbert went on to throw four interceptions as the Chargers were outscored 32-6 throughout the rest of the game, with Houston’s Joe Mixon bringing home the NVP behind his 119 all-purpose yards and a touchdown performance.

Nickelodeon had become the greatest broadcasting partner in the NFL’s century-long existence, and Disney wanted a piece of theirs.

Disney couldn’t dare keep its dirty, money-hungry hands away from sports broadcasting for long.

The architects of “The Happiest Place on Earth” used the NFL’s Next Gen Stats technology powered by Amazon Web Services to recreate a fully animated telecast of a game from Andy’s Room from the popular “Toy Story” series. 

When the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars met at Wembley Stadium in London, England, Toy Story Funday Football could be witnessed on ESPN+ and Disney+, with Slinky as the chain gang and “The Claw” used to spot the ball.

The all-animated broadcast had its fair share of technical difficulties, including one that forced the camera far away from the field. It made the game predominantly unwatchable throughout the first half.

By the end of the first quarter, I had already flipped back to the regular telecast. It just wasn’t worth it anymore.

After a year of working in the lab, Disney came back swinging with “The Simpsons” on Monday Night Football. 

Like its first iteration a year ago, The Simpsons Funday Football was delayed by a few minutes. But this time, producers decided to use it to their advantage.

Disney would sub-in well-known characters from the show into the game once they knew exactly when a big play was coming.

Where else will you see Bart throwing a back shoulder curl route to his sister Lisa who cooks her father Homer Simpson to take the lead late in the action?

What am I even watching? It’s so stupid yet so perfect.

If this is the way football was meant to be watched, why not other sports?

Disney answered the call with Dunk the Halls for one of the games on the NBA’s annual Christmas Day slate.

I mean, c’mon. Look at Goofy go rim-running.

The NFL has tried its hand at alternate broadcasts, with its most successful iteration being the ManningCast, a stream of Monday Night Football hosted by the Hall of Fame quarterback duo of Payton and Eli Manning, as a wide variety of celebrity guests join the brothers throughout the game.

It’s a very well-put-together telecast with a cult-like following among NFL fans. But still, that production pales compared to what Disney and Nickelodeon are doing for sports broadcasting.

At the end of the day, how could you not enjoy watching a sports telecast from either company? They help keep everyone from casual to diehard sports fans engaged by staying light-hearted, enjoyable and entertaining.

Disney and Nickelodeon’s alternate broadcasts are one of the best things to ever happen to sports media; these alternate telecasts are the future of sports television.