In addition to kicking off the 2025 college football season, the Iowa State-Kansas State Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin, Ireland, featured the debut of a new graphics and animations package for ESPN college football broadcasts.
Today’s @cfbireland game marks the debut of our new @ESPNCFB graphics and animation package.
Here’s the new scorebug and other visual assets. Kudos to our ESPN Creative Studio team on their latest outstanding work. pic.twitter.com/kWeBWSLyau
— bill hofheimer (@bhofheimer_espn) August 23, 2025
The most meaningful change to the broadcast is hard to miss, with a brand-new scorebug in the middle of the screen.
What do you think of the new ESPN college football scorebug? 🏈📺 #CFB pic.twitter.com/C20895Ldaz
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 23, 2025
Here, you can get a good look at the new scorebug and graphics in action with the Cyclones scoring the first touchdown of the 2025 season.
You can see the new ESPN college football scorebug and graphics in action for a touchdown here. 🏈📺 #CFB pic.twitter.com/vk65Ydb55a https://t.co/aN8OfRR1cx
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 23, 2025
One interesting feature of the scorebug is how it changes depending on which team has the football. For example, in the videos above, you can see the scorebug being mostly red while Iowa State has the ball. And below, you can see the scorebug being mostly purple while Kansas State has the ball.
The main color on the new ESPN college football scorebug changes depending on which team has the ball.
For example, here you can see the scorebug mostly in purple while Kansas State has the offensive possession. 🏈📺 #CFB https://t.co/aN8OfRR1cx pic.twitter.com/NsPNfdcywP
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 23, 2025
The viewer response to the new scorebug has been mostly positive.
As an example, college football writer Chris Vannini of The Athletic wrote on X, “New ESPN scorebug. I like it.”
New ESPN scorebug. I like it. pic.twitter.com/WKKn9H06mL
— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) August 23, 2025
While comparing the 2025 college football scorebug to ESPN’s 2024 version, the Sports TV News & Updates account on X made the following observation: “One underrated aspect of the new ESPN CFB scorebug is that the time and down/distance will no longer have to be squished down to accommodate the name of a special event/bowl game.”
One underrated aspect of the new ESPN CFB scorebug is that the time and down/distance will no longer have to be squished down to accommodate the name of a special event/bowl game. pic.twitter.com/xvrF8Yo1fq
— Sports TV News & Updates (@TVSportsUpdates) August 23, 2025
The main complaint, even from some people who like the scorebug, has been that it’s too big.
just a little too big but aside from that the most positive initial reaction i can remember having https://t.co/dyMOBThSJE
— tryler (@tylerlauletta) August 23, 2025
And as many people have noted, it feels similar to the SEC on ABC scorebug.
Slightly augmented version of the SEC scorebug. Brings all shows closer to cohesive while making the SEC unique. I like it.
— Nick Case (@nick422.bsky.social) August 23, 2025 at 10:07 AM
The SEC on ABC scorebug has been very well-received, with Awful Announcing reader votes ranking it the second-best college football scorebug of the 2024 season. So, it would make sense that ESPN would want to build off that for the main scorebug, if that was part of their thinking.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.