But the great Super Bowls are also measured by memorable advertising like the Bud Bowl, the "Nothing But Net" showdown between Larry Bird and Michael Jordan, and an acrobatic Ali Landry doing flips through a laundromat to catch chips in her mouth.

Just as the players on the field know they have to make the most of perhaps their only shot at a Super Bowl title, when the action pauses on the field, advertisers are on a mission to captivate the year's largest television audience with a product pitch that packs a punch.

"Commercials at the Super Bowl are big," said Bob Dole, the former Senate majority leader and the 1996 Republican presidential nominee. "If you want to go to the bathroom, you have to do it during the game."

He ought to know. Dole has made two Super Bowl commercials since his failed presidential run. He peddled the Visa check card and Pepsi as a cold, caffeinated alternative to the male potency pill.

Dole previously endorsed Viagra to sufferers of erectile dysfunction. "I owe it all to my little blue friend," Dole said in the commercial before a stunt double vaulted into a Pepsi-induced series of somersaults.

Had he done the spot before leaving politics, he might have reached the White House. In the wake of his second Super Bowl spot, Dole has enjoyed new-found popularity.

"I introduced President Bush at a high school recently, and I got a great big hand," said Dole, now 79 years old and retired. "Many of the kids were saying, 'That's the Pepsi guy.' It's strange because I have a different identity with some of tomorrow's leaders."

Likewise, Landry's Doritos commercial helped launch her career that had stalled despite her being named Miss USA. After her gymnastic spot appeared during a break in action in Super Bowl XXXII, she went on to be named to People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in the World, became host of Spy TV and appeared in two more Super Bowl commercials for Doritos.

"I didn't know how big it was," said Landry, whose 60-second commercial for Doritos 3D's debuted when the Super Bowl was last played in San Diego. "Now I know. Five years later, people still call me Doritos girl and want me to take pictures with chips."

A 30-second commercial in this year's Super Bowl cost advertisers $2.1 million, close to the high-water mark of $2.2 million in 2000. Still, it represents a 50-fold increase over the $42,000 price tag placed on a 30-second ad aired during the first Super Bowl in 1967.

While the high price has scared away some traditional Super Bowl advertisers like Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Nike, others think the money is well spent. After sitting out the high-stakes advertising game since 1985, Hanes will promote its tagless undershirts using Jackie Chan and Michael Jordan.

"This was a no-brainer," said Jake Van Wyk, director of marketing for Hanes men's underwear. "Advertising in the Super Bowl is the best way to get your message out to as many people as possible."

It is estimated that more than 100 million viewers will watch ABC's telecast of Sunday's game, traditionally one of the highest-rated telecasts of the year. But with so much at stake with such a huge audience, Super Bowl advertisers spare no expense on production costs and appearance fees for high-profile celebrities.

In addition to his Hanes ad, Jordan also will appear in a Gatorade commercial that originally debuted during college football's four Bowl Championship Series games earlier this month. In the spot, an older, present-day Jordan goes one-on-one with the Jordan of old, circa 1987.

But perhaps more powerful than celebrity is the ability to make viewers laugh. Much like Dole's Pepsi parody of his previous Viagra commercial, H&R Block is using country singer Willie Nelson, who filed for bankruptcy after a run-in with the Internal Revenue Service in the early 1990s, to pitch its "Double Check Challenge." And Budweiser will put a new spin on its 1996 commercial of Clydesdales playing football, this time using instant replay to settle a dispute in their game.

In 1996, Pepsi had people laughing and earned critics' acclaim with its commercial showing a Coca-Cola deliveryman trying to sneak a Pepsi out of a vending machine as Hank Williams' "Your Cheating Heart" plays in the background. But when he pulls on the can, a security camera captures the scene as a machine full of Pepsi cans crash to the floor.

"I think people liked it because we did it with a smile, instead of saying, 'Coke stinks, Pepsi is good,' " said Ted Sann, chief creative officer for BBDO Worldwide, which dreamed up ads for Pepsi, FedEx and Visa for this year's Super Bowl.

"It's tough for a company to try to tell you who they are or what their product does in a Super Bowl commercial," he said. "Most companies use the time to make a statement about their company and what they stand for."

Said Doug Adams, of market research firm InsightExpress: "Super Bowl advertising is its own phenomenon in that people are talking about the commercials more than they are in everyday situations. They remember them better and they often feel better about the company as a result of their advertising in the game."

Results from an InsightExpress survey show 40 percent of viewers pay more attention to Super Bowl ads than ads shown during a typical prime-time period. Twenty percent of Super Bowl watchers pay more attention to the commercials than to the game itself, and almost 30 percent have tried a product after seeing it advertised during the Super Bowl.

"Super Bowl advertising can be an ego buy," said David Carter, a professor at USC's Marshall School of Business whose graduate students have reviewed Super Bowl commercials for the Los Angeles Times for the past three years. "There's usually a little bit of chest beating for companies that can say they are a Super Bowl advertiser."

And a little bit of knee-slapping by viewers.

Darren Rovell, who covers sports business for ESPN.com, can be reached at Darren.rovell@espn3.com