NBC’s Super Bowl design blends glass, bevels, stadium ‘spaces’ and AR

NBC Sports debuted a glassy new graphics package during its coverage of Super Bowl LVI.

The new design rolled out during coverage of the Feb. 13, 2022 game that was part of “Super Gold Sunday,” as the network dubbed it in homage to the schedule packed with both the big game and 2022 Winter Olympics coverage.

The new graphics took on a look that’s full of glass effects in everything from 3D elements used to create logos to the curved “panels” in the background of other graphics. Other common elements included bevels and “neon” like elements along with several variations of curves. 

For viewers, the most noticeable change was a redesigned scorebug.

NBC moved the clock to the center of the screen set inside of a circle that also features the peacock logo, quarter designator and play clock, a layout that helps make it more friendly to viewing on mobile devices.

The overall look is expected to be used on NBC’s football coverage going forward, though some elements will be modified, namely to remove Super Bowl references. 

The network also opted to insert a bug in the upper right with the “Super Bowl LVI” logotype and its own peacock icon or, for Telemundo, that network’s “T” icon. Both logos appeared in full color.

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Telemundo, which is owned by NBCUniversal, was carrying the big game for the first time and inserted its own Spanish language commentary and graphics, which used a similar look to NBC.

Teams’ scores were inserted on either side of the circle in color coded boxes that also incorporated their logos with a curved glassy effect over it.

This redesigned graphic replaced the angled box look that ran along the bottom of the screen and brings NBC’s scorebug closer in line with other NFL media partners.

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An alternate version of the score bar moved the circle more to the left and stacked the scores beyond this, leaving room for additional player and game information to the right and includes an animation to “reset” the layout to the normal, centered design.