Ascore bug is adigital on-screen graphic which is displayed at either the top orlower third bottom of thetelevision screen during a broadcast of a sporting event in order to display the current score and other statistics.[1]
The concept of a persistent score bug forassociation football matches was devised bySky Sports headDavid Hill, who was dissatisfied over having to wait to see what the score was after tuning into a match in-progress. The score bug was introduced during Sky's coverage of the then newly-formed EnglishPremier League in August 1992. Hill's boss repeatedly demanded that the graphic be removed, describing it as the "stupidest thing [he] had ever seen". Hill defied the boss's demands and kept the graphic in place.[2] ITV introduced a score bug at the start of the 1993–94 football season, and theBBC introduced a score bug towards the end of 1993.
The concept was introduced to the United States byABC Sports andESPN during coverage of the1994 FIFA World Cup. Their justification for the graphic was to provide a location for a rotating series ofsponsor logos, in order to allow matches to air without commercial interruption.[2]
With the acquisition of rights to theNational Football League (NFL) byBSkyB's American siblingFox (a fellow venture ofRupert Murdoch), Hill became the first president ofFox Sports. Under Hill's leadership, Fox introduced version of the score bug branded as the "Fox Box", which was part of its inaugural season ofNFL coverage in1994.[2]Variety criticized it as an "annoying see-through clock and score graphic" and expressed concern for people "who actually watched the beginning of the game and would rather have their screen clear of graphics".[3] Hill even received a death threat from an irate viewer, with a specific emphasis on him being a "foreigner",[4] but the score bug soon became a ubiquitous feature for American football broadcasts, along with almost all American sports broadcasts in the years that followed.[5][2]
Dick Ebersol ofNBC Sports initially opposed the idea of a score bug, as he thought that fans would dislike seeing more graphics on the screen and would change the channel fromblowout games if the score was constantly being displayed.[6]
Since the 2010s, the on-air design and positioning of some score bugs have been influenced by the needs ofInternet video (especially when viewing an event on devices with smaller screens), including bugs noticeably larger than prior iterations designed with television viewing in mind, and Fox having adopted a score bug positioned in the bottom-center of the screen for football (easing the ability for the bug to remain visible when highlights are cropped forsquare videos posted on social media).[7][8][9]