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While Philadelphia Phillies fans haven’t been especially eager to look at it recent days, the new score bug that NBC Sports Philadelphia is using on telecasts of games this season may be the best that they’ve ever had.
In what turned out to be an Opening Day win over the Oakland Athletics, the network debuted a new score bug that I initially pegged as one of the cleanest I had ever seen:
However, that tweet was sent while covering the game, meaning while I could glance out of the corner of my eye to see the television coverage, I was watching the game happen live.
Those watching on TV noted that it was difficult to read the text under each team’s score, which showed the batter, batter’s average, pitcher and pitch count in white writing.
And after watching a game or two on TV, I came to the conclusion that this was a valid critique. It’s debatable whether you need the batter’s name and batting average on the score bug at all, but you shouldn’t have to look too hard to find the pitch count of the person on the mound.
To their credit, NBC Sports Philadelphia seemingly agreed with this criticism. Instead of scrapping the entire score bug — which again, is largely excellent — they changed the color under each team’s score to black, making the white text significantly easier to read:
You’re never going to please everyone. Some networks — like MASN and AT&T SportsNet — have their score bugs in the bottom right of the screen as opposed to the top left. Bally Sports — the Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned regional sports network that reportedly made an offer to buy the local NBC Sports affiliates last July — uses a bottom line format, rather than a score bug. Back when it was called Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, the Phillies television home utilized various different lines at the top of the screen showing the score, pitch count, etc. from 2003-2010.
But for as hard as it is to please fans eager to critique the broadcast for a few likes on Twitter, NBC Sports Philadelphia — and all the local NBC Sports stations — have done an excellent job with this new score bug.
