As soon as the game play for the Super Bowl started this weekend, I couldn’t think about anything but the new “Fox Box” scorebug graphic at the bottom of the screen. I took some photos of it on my phone so I could come back later and talk about it.

Thankfully John Gruber noticed it as well, and has a brilliant piece on Daring Fireball summarizing the changes and the history of these style of graphics.

So I started studying and considering the changes to Fox’s scorebug. I quickly not only warmed up to the new scorebug, I decided I really like it. It’s better than Fox’s old one, and better than every other network’s (which all largely look the same), in almost every single regard.

I really like it as well.

Bigger and bolder typography adds clarity. But removing the background chrome lets viewers “see through” to any game action that happens at the bottom of the screen. To me, after just one game, the old Fox scorebug looks hopelessly dated; old-fashioned without any nostalgic charm. If anything, the new typography-first design is the one that looks timeless, evocative of the graphics from classic NFL Films productions.

The bigger and bolder text also has two major benefits: 1) visibility from far away, such as in a bar or restaurant and, more importantly I think, 2) better visibility when viewing on small mobile device screens.