Super Bowl Football Game

Ads for this year's Super Bowl football game are selling for $3 million per 30-second spot, according to broadcaster NBC. About 90% of ads for the game have been sold, a spokesman for General Electric Co.'s NBC said.

We are up to Super Bowl 45 now, or XLV to our Roman readers, and the general acceptance of it as a great event surpasses Obama numbers on his Inauguration Day. What's not to like about a big football game to watch, and the grand parties it creates? If we can have a holiday for our independence, why not one for our love of pro football? On some level, we understand that the Super Bowl overwhelmed the concept of sport years ago and became the grandest marketing scheme of all. The NFL isn't a sports brand.

SITE -- Sun Devil Stadium, Tempe, Ariz. This is the first game to be played in Arizona. SEATING CAPACITY -- 74,000. KICKOFF -- 3:18 p.m. PST NETWORK COVERAGE--By NBC-TV (Channel 4) to approximately 215 stations and throughout the United States plus Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Bahamas, and Antigua. By CBS Radio (1070 AM) to more than 375 stations within in the United States. The Armed Forces Televison and Radio Network will also provide broadcast through out the world.

The water cooler has been replaced. We are standing around Twitter, deconstructing figure skater Evan Lysacek's long program, debating whether Evgeni Plushenko's quadruple jump was undervalued. We are gathering on Facebook pages to bad-mouth NBC for its love of tape-delayed sports or to be one among thousands of instant style critics: What were they thinking with those women's bobsled suits? How does Bob Costas get that hair color? How do I get Shaun White's tomato red? In the last six weeks, Americans have watched and talked about big sports events in numbers that have achieved record levels for television as well as online, including social media -- from the Super Bowl to Tiger Woods' public mea culpa and now the Winter Olympics.

The nonstop schedule of Super Bowl hype was shattered by reality late Thursday. Laura Patterson, 43, a former trapeze artist from Sarasota, Fla., was killed while practicing a bungee-jumping routine in the Superdome. The routine was to have been part of the 30-second grand finale to Sunday's extravagant halftime segment.

He is a most unlikely national hero, a man who has barely spent any time in South Korea, speaks little of the language and who under other circumstances might be looked down upon in this society. Ever since Hines Ward was named the most valuable player of the Super Bowl last week, the half-Korean Pittsburgh Steeler wide receiver has been the toast of the town. People are talking about throwing parades in his honor.

There was a time, years ago, when Hines Ward was embarrassed to be seen with his own mother. He just didn't understand, and she was so ... different. Mother and son literally did not speak the same language. But the passing years and Kim Young's undying devotion to her only child eventually forged such a bond that Ward, the Pittsburgh Steelers' leading receiver for six seasons, couldn't help but grow emotional when talking about her this week in advance of Sunday's Super Bowl.

Everyone around them is talking dynasty and where New England fits in the pantheon of great NFL teams, but the Patriots are clinging to the notion that they don't get their just due. The buzzword Tuesday during their portion of the media session was "disrespect." "Everyone wants to be respected," said Coach Bill Belichick, whose team has reached its third Super Bowl in four seasons. "It's kind of human nature.

Super Bowl XL comes with a guarantee: Every football -- all 120 of them -- will be dropped. That is, each will be marked with a drop of synthetic DNA to thwart potential counterfeiters who might be tempted to sell phony "game-used" Super Bowl footballs, which can be worth thousands of dollars. Exposed to a specific laser frequency, the DNA glows to a bright green.

PITTSBURGH STEELERS vs. DALLAS COWBOYS Date: Sunday, Jan. 28 Time: 3:20 p.m. Site: Temple, Ariz. TV: Channel 4 Radio: KNX (1070) Steelers at a Glance Regular Season (11-5) 23. . . Detroit. . .20 34. . . At Houston. . .17 10. . . At Miami. . .23 24. . .Minnesota. . .44 31. . .San Diego. . .16 16. . .At Jacksonville. . .20 9. . .Cincinnati. . .27 24. . .Jacksonville. . .7 37. . .At Chicago. . .34* 20. . .Cleveland. . .3 49. . .At Cincinnati. . .31 20. . .At Cleveland. . .17 21. . .Houston. . .

If pro football really is the national religion, the Mardi Gras-style victory parade for the New Orleans Saints on Tuesday displayed the varieties of religious experience: What other event would bring together Bobby Jindal, Louisiana's choirboy GOP governor, and the Ying Yang Twins, the Southern rap duo whose songs describe sexual activities that barely sound biologically possible? On Monday, Saints quarterback Drew Brees starred in the Super Bowl victor's traditional parade through Disney World.

Sean Payton could use a proper pillow. The day after coaching the New Orleans Saints to a 31-17 victory over Indianapolis in Super Bowl XLIV, Payton looked happy but bleary-eyed early Monday morning. Maybe it had something to do with him grabbing a precious few winks in his hotel room with the Lombardi Trophy in his arms. "This thing laid in my bed next to me last night," the coach said at the traditional victors news conference. "Rolled over [it] a couple times. I probably drooled on it. But man, there's nothing like it."

Everybody take a deep breath. The sports hysteria of recent days is over. In our rearview mirror, thankfully, are the Super Bowl and high school football signing day. The NFL ran its annual scam and we all sat up and barked. No question, the game is great theater, the athletes are special and the chance to have a party is nice. The problem is, we have to hear about it constantly for two weeks, almost as if we are deaf or have attention deficit disorder. We get it. We know it is our civic duty to watch the commercials and buy from the advertisers so they will make enough money for even more expensive commercials for next year's Super Bowl.

The New Orleans Saints' Super Bowl victory over the Indianapolis Colts not only ended 42 seasons of football futility for the franchise, it also shattered one of the television industry's most storied records. About 106.5 million tuned into CBS' telecast of Super Bowl XLIV on Sunday, making it the most watched TV program in the United States ever and topping the series finale of that network's legendary wartime sitcom "MASH," which drew 106 million viewers in 1983, according to Nielsen.

Boy tackles mom. That was about it. The ad that made former Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam, the unintended stars of Super Bowl XLIV was not a screed against abortion. Nor was it a heartwarming story about a mother ignoring doctors' advice and having her baby. It was, instead, a lighthearted take on a mother-son relationship. In the ad, Pam Tebow holds a baby photo of Tim, now 22. "I call him my miracle baby," she says. "He almost didn't make it into this world.

One helmet is an ancient symbol of rebirth, an eternal emblem of hope. The other helmet is footwear for a horse. America needs the New Orleans Saints to win the Super Bowl. One team's history can be found in a museum featuring paper bags once worn by embarrassed fans and tear-stained tissues used by happily weeping fans. The other team's history can be found in a Mayflower moving truck. America needs the New Orleans Saints to win the Super Bowl. There is no cheering in the press box, but that rule doesn't apply to the sports section, and so allow me a few moments today to lead America in a chant that nobody really understands for a team that has absolutely no chance in a place that has taken them more than four decades to find.

Young boys dream, and Al Michaels was no exception. He dreamed of someday being a major league announcer. As a youngster in Brooklyn, N.Y., he listened to Dodger radio broadcasts and became enchanted with the voices of Red Barber, Connie Desmond and Vin Scully. When he attended games at nearby Ebbets Field with his father, he couldn't take his eyes off the crew in the broadcast booth. Sometimes dreams come true. Michaels' did. He was working for the Cincinnati Reds by the time he was 26.

The only thing that has endured longer than running back Tom Matte's record 10.5 yards a carry in Super Bowl III is his belief that the best team didn't win. More than 20 years later, he still maintains that the Colts should not have been upset by the New York Jets, who became the first AFL team to win a Super Bowl with a 16-7 victory. "I would have liked to have played them the next day," said Matte, a Baltimore-area businessman. "I would have liked to get them in a best two out of three.

Peyton Manning doesn't like to waste time. So, for instance, when the Indianapolis quarterback runs on the treadmill, he doesn't just chug along like everyone else. He practices the two-minute drill while jogging, gesturing and calling out plays as he racks up the miles. "The first time I saw that I was like, 'What is he doing?' " Colts guard Ryan Lilja said. "I'd never seen that before, but then I realized it makes perfect sense. This guy is a next-level thinker." For one NFL team -- either Manning's Colts or the New Orleans Saints -- the next level is just four quarters away.

Thirteen years ago, IBM built a chess-playing computer called Deep Blue that beat the world champion before being dismantled. The deep-blue-clad Indianapolis Colts have their own version, and he wears No. 18. When it comes to the NFL chess match, there's no better player than Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, and that's something Jonathan Vilma knows all too well. Vilma, the middle linebacker for the New Orleans Saints, is preparing for a mental and physical chess match with Manning on Sunday in Super Bowl XLIV.