The New FOX Sports Scorebug

I was sitting on a barstool next to my wife in a packed restaurant in Little Italy. We were the lone Kansas City Chiefs supporters in a nest full of hipster Philadelphia Eagles fans. After Jon Batiste finished his fantastic rendition of the national anthem, and the teams took the field for kickoff, I noticed something. The scorebug—the broadcast industry’s term for the lower-third or chyron graphic at the bottom of the screen—was different, and in a good way.

I posted about it seven minutes into the first quarter, saying I appreciated “the minimalistic lower-thirds for this Super Bowl broadcast.” It was indeed refreshing, a break from the over-the-top 3D-animated sparkling. I thought the graphics were clear and utilitarian while being exquisitely-designed. They weren’t distracting from the action. As with any good interface design, this new scorebug kept the focus on the players and the game, not itself. I also thought they were a long-delayed response to Apple’s Friday Night Baseball scorebug.

Anyhow, as a man of good taste, John Gruber also noticed the excellence of the new graphics. Some of his followers, however, did not.

It looks as if they just let an intern knock something up in PowerPoint and didn’t bother having someone check it first. Awful. 👎

The scorebug is absolutely horrible! I really hope they don’t adopt this for the 2025 season, or I will riot. Horrible design and very distracting especially the score, this looks like something out of Fortnite.

Gruber has a wonderful and in-depth write-up about FOX Sports’ new NFL scorebug. Not only does it include a good design critique, but also a history lesson about the scorebug, which surprisingly, didn’t debut until 1994.

Until 1994, the networks would show the score and time remaining when they cut to a commercial break, and then show it again when they came back from commercials.

I had totally forgotten about that.