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Whether it was seeing the world’s two top NFL teams coming together for a nail-biting overtime finish in Vegas, the allure of Taylor Swift in the crowd, Usher’s half time performance, Spongebob Squarepants’s commentary or simply a lot of slime, the 2024 Super Bowl LVIII had it all, and the broadcast numbers, released by CBS, have cemented its place in media history.
“For the Super Bowl, Silver Spoon and AE Live took on our biggest AR and virtual activation EVER – 18 tracked cameras, 2 simultaneous broadcasts of the Super Bowl on CBS and Nickelodeon, over 40 unique AR graphics all built in Unreal, a completely 3D animated rendition of ‘Sweet Victory’ and best of all – live motion capture with the real SpongeBob & Patrick, Larry the Lobster, and Sandy Cheeks.” MD Silver Spoon, Dan Pack
CBS released the numbers for the latest edition of the Super Bowl, revealing that it averaged 123.4 million viewers across multiple platforms (CBS Television Network, Nickelodeon, Univision, CBS Sports, Univision, NFL+, and the NFL’s other digital properties). This makes the game the most watched programme in US television history, unseating Super Bowl LVII and raising viewership by 7%.
The 2024 Super Bowl reached millions of viewers on Sunday evening, but it was the kid-friendly version on Nickelodeon that had people laughing all night long.
AE Live and Silver Spoon made a massive splash in the sports-broadcast-graphics sector last year by announcing that AE Live, the world-leading global provider of data and broadcast graphics solutions, had acquired Silver Spoon, the industry experts in innovative, real time virtual production content on Unreal Engine.
Over the past 2 years, CBS and Nickelodeon have partnered with Silver Spoon on the now established “Nickified” NFL simulcasts, with the goal of bringing football to a younger viewing audience.
With the success of Nickmas, CBS and Nickelodeon teamed up again with Silver Spoon for the 2024 Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas on Sunday, with the main aim of once again telling a cohesive creative story, developing flexible AR moments to keep viewers entertained, and pushing the technical boundaries of what had been done in live AR on TV.
Silver Spoon and Nickelodeon’s Super Bowl simulcast of CBS’s game, moved the chains on storytelling, entertainment, and technology that bit further. The game broke new ground in real-time broadcasting, built entirely in Unreal Engine 5.0, featuring game-controlled characters on live TV, and utilizing real-time facial capture technology for live on-air commentary from an animated character.
Praised by their partners for their ability to constantly innovate and expand the boundaries of real-time production, Silver Spoon raised the bar even higher in 2024 by developing mixed-reality effects and iconic characters, such as Spongebob Squarepants (who teamed up with Patrick Star, creating their own Super Bowl commentary), the cast of characters from Bikini Bottom, Sandy Cheeks and Nickelodeon’s Dora the Explorer. Furthermore, to open the Super Bowl, the cast of Spongebob Squarepants performed their hit song “Sweet Victory.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Nickelodeon broadcast without green slime. And Silver Spoon did not disappoint the fans. Throughout the Super Bowl, animated cannons shot out green slime during field goals and touchdowns, while jellyfish from Bikini Bottom’s Jellyfish Fields made cameos.
With Sponge Bob in the booth and Dora on the field, and the highly anticipated attendance and camera spotting of pop royalty Taylor Swift cheering from the stands, the game attracted a wider and more diverse viewership, and a new generation of NFL fans.
Silver Spoon also created a range of AR content for CBS on the main broadcast of the event including augmented fan celebrations on touchdowns in-game and a range of augmented graphics over the lake at Bellagio Casino where the pre-match shows were hosted. AE Live also provided invaluable support across both broadcasts with regards to camera tracking and data integration.
In all, Silver Spoon delivered all of the AR activations using a record breaking 23 tracked cameras over the weekend.
With virtual-production, AR, and XR technologies growing exponentially in recent years, Silver Spoon has been among the leaders in bringing these immersive technologies to our screens. Most notable 2023 Silver Spoon Successes: Big City Greens NHL Simulcast, ESPN NBA Finals, FIBA World Basketball Championships, ESPN Monday Night Football, CBS SEC Football and ESPN Toy Story NFL Funcast.