Are You Ready, Football Fans? “SpongeBob SquarePants” Tackles the NFL With New Collection

Are you ready, football fans?

We certainly hope so, because Bikini Bottom is apparently getting ready for game day.

“SpongeBob SquarePants” has teamed up with the NFL for a new apparel collection bringing together one of the world’s biggest sports leagues and one particularly absorbent, yellow and endlessly optimistic resident of a pineapple under the sea.

And somehow, it makes perfect sense.

The NFL and Paramount Products & Experiences have launched the new NFL x “SpongeBob SquarePants” collection ahead of the 2026 NFL Games in Europe, where SpongeBob will serve as the league’s exclusive licensed character partnership for its EMEA games.

That means as the NFL heads across London, Paris, Madrid and Munich this fall, SpongeBob, Patrick and the rest of Bikini Bottom are coming along for the ride.

Or should that be swim?

Designed and manufactured by Outerstuff, the collection mixes NFL branding with the colorful world of “SpongeBob SquarePants” across apparel created for almost every age of football fan.

Older kids and adults can find fashion jerseys, varsity jackets, hoodies and T-shirts, while younger fans ages 4-7 have their own hoodies and tees.

And if you thought that was where the age range ended, think again.

There are even baby vests for newborns and infants.

Apparently, you’re never too young to start deciding which team you’ll spend the next several decades emotionally invested in.

Or to love SpongeBob.

That wide age range is actually what makes this collaboration particularly interesting. “SpongeBob SquarePants” might have started as a children’s animated series, but after more than 25 years, there are now multiple generations who have grown up with SpongeBob.

Today’s kids know him.

Their parents know him.

And there is a pretty good chance plenty of those parents can still recite an alarming amount of dialogue from episodes they first watched years ago.

Pair that with the NFL’s own enormous multigenerational audience, and suddenly putting SpongeBob on a football jersey doesn’t seem strange at all.

It feels almost inevitable.

The collaboration is also arriving as the NFL continues to make a bigger play for families and audiences outside the United States. Six regular-season games are scheduled across Europe this fall, beginning with the Indianapolis Colts taking on the Washington Commanders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London on Oct. 4.

Additional games will follow in London before the league travels to Paris, Madrid and Munich through Nov. 15.

The SpongeBob collection will be available at NFL Shop pop-up locations during game weeks in the U.K., France, Spain and Germany, giving families attending those games another way to combine their love of football with a character that needs very little introduction anywhere in the world.

The collection is also available online as of Oct. 1.

And this isn’t exactly SpongeBob’s first trip onto the football field.

Over the years, Nickelodeon’s relationship with the NFL has increasingly found ways to make football approachable for younger viewers through kid-focused broadcasts, familiar characters and, yes, plenty of slime.

SpongeBob himself has become particularly comfortable around the sport.

Now he gets the wardrobe to prove it.

There is also something fitting about “SpongeBob SquarePants” being chosen as the NFL’s character partner for these European games. Few animated characters have managed to remain quite as recognizable across generations and borders as SpongeBob, making Bikini Bottom an unusually effective meeting point between young fans discovering football and adults who have been watching both SpongeBob and the NFL for years.

Sports fandom gets passed down through families.

So do favorite characters.

This time, they just happen to be meeting on the same jersey.

The 2026 NFL European games kick off Oct. 4 in London before continuing through Nov. 15, with stops in Paris, Madrid and Munich.

And whether you’re cheering from the stadium, watching from home or still figuring out what a first down actually is, at least one thing seems certain.

SpongeBob is ready.

Are you?