Fox debuts a taller college basketball scorebug, takes criticism

Networks shake up their scorebugs quite often, and those changes often come with some criticism from those who preferred the old one, or have other thoughts on how a new score bug one should look. Even by that standard, though, the amount of criticism for the new college basketball scorebug Fox used Tuesday (starting with the men’s Mount St. Mary’s versus Villanova game on FS1) seems higher than normal, and a lot of that’s particularly focused on the scorebug being taller than normal for college basketball (or for most sports; ESPN and TBS did try larger scorebugs in 2016, which also took criticism, and didn’t last). You can see the new Fox one at top; by contrast, here’s what that looked like earlier this year during the Big East championship game in March.

That old one is pretty similar to what Fox used on most of their sports (including college football and the NFL) until last year, when they deployed changes to most of those properties. Now, it looks like it’s their college basketball coverage’s turn for a new scorebug. But the new scorebug here is very different than what they’re using in other sports, especially with its height. Here are some of the many tweets about the new one:

.@FOXSports debuts a new scorebug for college basketball.

Much larger than its predecessor and adds team logos, which the last bug didn't have.

We spoke to FOX about it and will have more on this over @sportsvideo on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/IopPDOppcJ

— Brandon Costa (@SVG_Brandon) November 9, 2021

Basketball is always tough because people along the sideline block the view but it doesn't help when you have a GIGANTIC score box also in the way pic.twitter.com/hw0pDEHdrb

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) November 9, 2021

https://twitter.com/Kyle__Boone/status/1458190831542841346

most networks in 2021: we're gonna build a slick score bug that fits into square and vertical templates for easy social posting + sharing

fox sports 1: nah make that thing the whole dang screen pic.twitter.com/829LqO1ex3

— Jeff McDevitt (@JeffMcDev) November 9, 2021

fox's new scorebug is truly offensive pic.twitter.com/aThVJAMr2E

— Teddy Bailey (@ByTeddyBailey) November 9, 2021

https://twitter.com/ChrisDobbertean/status/1458190767239962628?t=QVehOrhL5IzlPToWtrdlmA&s=19

We’ll see if Fox sticks with this despite the criticism or if they make adjustments. That forthcoming article Costa notes will be an interesting read for explaining their rationale.

[Photo via Brandon Costa on Twitter]