NFL fans blast Fox over rumored scorebug for Super Bowl 59 - "Gross", "Worst one in history"

Just as it did two years ago, Fox is debuting a new scorebug at Super Bowl LIX. However, not everyone is a fan of it.

On Wednesday, Dov Kleiman leaked a shot of the scorebug that will be used on Sunday. In contrast to the old one, the new graphic uses a rectangular bar that stretches the entire screen, not unlike what it used from 2017 to 2019. It will also have the team logos and colored bars, not unlike what CBS has been using since Super Bowl 50:

However, fans are not impressed:

“Gross,” one retched.

“This is the worst one in history,” another proclaimed.

“How are we getting worse and worse with scoreboards?” another wondered.

"This is awful," one jeered.

“Poorly designed and inaccessible. Shameful,” another admonished.

“Please stop this sh*t,” another begged.

"No it looks too much like CBS," another disparagingly compared.

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The evolution of Fox's NFL scorebug

Many may not realize it, but the scorebug has its origins in association football, AKA soccer. It was invented by David Hill, then-head of Sky Sports, who had been dissatisfied over having to guess the score when tuning into an ongoing match. It made its debut with Sky's coverage of the then-nascent English Premier League in 1992 and was soon adopted by ITV and the BBC.

In the United States, ABC Sports and ESPN introduced the scorebug in 1994 for its FIFA World Cup coverage. But it truly did not become a staple of American sports programming until Hill became president of Fox Sports.

There, he introduced the "Fox Box". It was rather basic: white text and border inside a transparent gray half-oval, half-trapezoid. The scorebug was initially received poorly, but other networks eventually adopted it. The Fox logo was added in 1996, and white boxes were added in 1998.

In 2001, the "Fox Box" was replaced by a bar that ran along the top of the screen. Color-coordinated team boxes were introduced in 2003, and this general design would remain in place until 2009.

In 2010, a new scorebug was introduced. It put the team boxes and scores on either side of the game and play clocks and quarter indicator, with the down indicator below. It lasted just two years before being changed in 2012 to a stack of teams, with trhe clocks and quarter indicator beside it.

2014 saw another new scorebug. The team boxes were now beside each other, with the clocks directly below. It would be used for three years with the 2016 iteration adding team records.

2017 saw the return of the bar, but with two major differences: it now sat on the bottom of the screen, and the team boxes were fully color-coordinated.

For Super Bowl LIV, the team logos returned - but now placed at the ends of a new and much larger score bug and partially cropped. They would be uncropped when the incumbent design was introduced at Super Bowl LVII.