Did anyone see the graphics on Prime Thursday night football? The only way to tell possession is they change the text color of the clock. Doesn't seem very useful. Who does the graphics best?
ASKED BY · Ryan Thomason · BROKEN ARROW · 16 OCT 2026 · ▶ 00:24:56
Acknowledges score bug design as a complex problem balancing informativeness, aesthetics, and non-intrusiveness; notes the Fox design is particularly poor but all major networks convey essential information adequately.
Notes that score bugs convey necessary information adequately and that color-based possession indicators are stylistic flourishes with limited practical value; opinions on graphics design vary by personal preference.
Emphasizes accessibility concerns with color-based information conveyance, specifically red-green colorblindness prevalence in males, and recommends blue and orange as better color choices for graphics.
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24:54crazy still have dhcp on your network but for the couple of things that matter reserve those ip addresses next question all right this one's from ryan thomason and broken arrow i'm assuming that's oklahoma did anyone see the graphics on prime thursday night football the only way to tell possession is they change the text color of the clock doesn't seem very useful who does the
25:18the graphics best chris abato so this is the thing in question i'm not showing any moving videos nfl so whatever but this is what we're this is what we're talking about right here this is orange so it matches that um honestly like it's football right like you can just look at the picture and see who has the ball i think this that's super unimportant um and that i feel like that's one of the things in the score bug and
25:50there's lots of things in the score bug where they they do it because they can right like it's just kind of this neat little thing um it doesn't it doesn't bring much value um but it's just a little flourish right that's all it is and i think this is one of those things um in terms of who does it best like that's all in the eye of the beholder um so let's look at like a handful like these are
26:15all the NFL score bugs right now and they all kind of look the same they're just a little different flourishes here and there um except for the Fox one which is like insanely hideous but when I'm when I'm watching a game on Fox like I don't notice it right it's just the information is there I consume it and it is what it is like when you look at when you look at these
26:40score bugs they all do what you need to do and i think very few of them like cause reactions during the game right you you just consume the information on them and and they're all set up in a way that you can get the information you need and you're not like fixating on how it looks right we can we can fix that not how it looks now like people dissect these things they're like oh this does
27:04this and this does that and why do they do this why is that it's all personal opinion right um Um, uh, personally, I, I, I hate the Fox one. I think it's terrible and it's lazy, but it conveys all the information you need. So yeah. Fenwick. Yeah. I, uh, as you know, Sabato, I'm not a big sports fan, but I do think that it's a fascinating
27:29problem to say, I have all these bits of information, you know, how many timeouts, how many seconds, whatever the stuff is, depending on what sport you're doing. And you want it to be informative, non-intrusive, stylish, but not overbearing. And yes, it's absolutely an opinion thing, but it's the kind of thing where sometimes you gotta reach out to the obsessive compulsive people, and I will agree that given that slide
28:01that you put up with all the samples, samples. Do you do this every year? Do you go and get samples of them and examine them every year? No, I don't, but there are people that do. When this question came up, I knew exactly where to go to find that slide. Yeah. I think it's a fascinating problem. I agree that the Fox one looked really bad.
28:19It was just some guy just dropping in icons that don't even line up with each other. I find it interesting. When I walk through the room and people are watching sports, that's That's what I do. I was like, oh, what does that little dot mean? It's an interesting problem. Courtney? And I might point out that using color to convey information in a little lower third can be problematic, especially if you're using team colors.
28:51Because, A, you have to deal with the contrast of whatever the team's color is versus the background that you choose. and second, you know, a certain percentage of the male viewing public is colorblind or red-blue or red-green colorblind and they may not see that color contrast at all. They may not even be able to see the clock at all. So it depends on your level of colorblindness and it's – colorblindness is far more frequent in the adult male.