Fox announced a new NFL scorebug in the lead-up to Super Bowl LIX, but fans were still shocked to see it in the opening moments of the championship game from New Orleans.
The bare-bones graphic is projected onto the viewing window with no background or logos. All that viewers can see is the colors and acronyms for each team as well as their timeouts, the time and score. During play, the scorebug shows the play clock as well as the down and distance.
At times, Fox throws up statistics and player names to the left and right of the primary scorebug graphics to give more info.
While scorebugs are notoriously divisive among diehard sports fans, Fox’s newest creation was knocked immediately — and nearly universally.
NBC’s Nicole Auerbach got in early with an X post calling the scorebug “awful.”
omg the scorebug is awful
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) February 9, 2025
Barstool’s Dan “Big Cat” Katz was predictably a little more vulgar in his complaint about the graphics.
A top early comment on the NFL sub-Reddit game thread read simply, “it sucks.”
Over on Bluesky, sports media connoisseur CJ Fogler commented that the scorebug was similar to the graphics seen in NFL Films footage of games from the pre-scorebug era. Fogler also caught an example of Fox’s down and distance imaging overlapping with a stats graphic.
Many will wonder why Fox would debut a bold new scorebug during a Super Bowl. Good or bad, it is the most prominent football broadcast they will air for years. There’s nothing like the feedback they will get with 100 million-plus watching.
It may just take fans a while to get used to the new-look graphics, or Fox could ditch this particular scorebug by September like it never happened.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.