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Think the Super Bowl is only about football? Last year, NBC took in an estimated $213 million from advertisers. Despite the down economy, the 2010 game promises to be just as bountiful for CBS, this year’s host network.

Though a few companies have announced plans to stay on the sidelines, most notably PepsiCo, this year’s roster is filling up quickly with major advertisers lured by the promise of nearly 100 million viewers. CBS has reported that commercial spots for the Feb. 7 contest are selling like giant foam fingers on game day, at a rate of about $2 million to $3 million per 30 seconds of air time.

For those more interested in the so-called Ad Bowl than the Super Bowl itself, HCD Research, a market research firm, will conduct a national survey to determine the best ads.

Survey results will be posted the morning after the game on www.mediacurves.com.

In the “The Billion Dollar Game,” Allen St. John provides an inside view of the greatest marketing event in American sports. The author spent a year reporting on the buildup to Super Bowl XLII in 2008.

Join him as he visits with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman in the broadcast booth, observes as Anheuser-Busch conducts a focus group test of their ad campaign, and tours the state-of-the-art Arizona stadium — built specifically to host the occasional big game — with architect Peter Eisenman.

The book is available at the Newport Beach Public Library. Users of the library might also wish to check out these books on advertising and marketing:

In “The King of Madison Avenue,” Kenneth Roman offers a portrait of one of the most fascinating figures in advertising history, David Ogilvie. A British expatriate, Ogilvie got his start in the London office of Mather & Crowly in the 1930s, was transferred to New York, and opened his own Manhattan firm in 1940. Roman recounts his most successful ad campaigns for high-profile brand names like Schweppes, Dove, Marlboro and Rolls Royce.

James Othmer recalls his 20 years in the advertising industry in “Adland: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet.” Othmer got his start as a copywriter and has obviously retained his yen for the creative side of the business. He describes the thrill of long sessions spent brainstorming for ideas.