Launch New BBC Sport Graphics

[DE88]

I remember them changing from the italic font they used throughout the nineties into the non-italic font on Grand National Day in April 1999, which again was applied across BBC Sport, though MOTD still used the old graphics until the end of the season.

To be pedantic, BBC Sport used Univers Condensed Bold Italic from '88 until '96, then Helvetica Bold Italic from '96 until '99.

The start of the Seoul Olympics in September '88 marked the introduction of both Univers Condensed Bold Italic and the atom globe. When the Barcelona Games came round four years later, the globe was changed, but the font stayed the same.

Euro 96 was when Helvetica Bold Italic came in, along with the so-called "Fisher-Price" version of the globe. Then, when Lambie-Nairn's BBC logo arrived in October '97, again the globe was changed but the font wasn't.

April '99 was indeed when BBC Sport adopted Gill Sans Bold (except on MOTD until August), and the globe was retired.

Continuing the story, the 2001 graphics package - sneak preview in that Greece v England game in June and official introduction in August, as you say - featured Gill Sans Bold Italic and Gill Sans Condensed Bold, before the overhaul in February 2003 brought with it the non-italic version of Univers Condensed Bold. And as the italic version had survived the tweaks to the surrounding presentation in '92, so the non-italic version survived the tweaks made when the 2006 World Cup came round.

Then, of course, with the next WC in 2010 came Gotham - although Univers Condensed Bold lived on on the darts coverage, when the player named on the bottom row of the graphic was on a bogey number when throwing...