Neil Best's Fans' guide to the Super Bowl

Now we know how music lovers feel when those of us who don't know a Lady Gaga from a Yo-Yo Ma join them to watch the Grammys.

Deal with it, sports fans: This is the day each year when we invite our non-fan brothers and sisters into our circle and tolerate them talking during the game and watching during the ads.

(A recent Nielsen survey found 51 percent of people prefer the commercials to the game.)

It is that broad appeal that likely will attract the biggest Super Bowl audience ever, surpassing the 98.7 million last year, and perhaps challenging the 106 million for the "M*A*S*H" finale in 1983.

The ratings will be staggering in New Orleans, where those for the NFC Championship Game were the highest for any city in any previous NFL playoff game, including Super Bowls.

The figures won't include Archie and Olivia Manning's house in the city's Garden District. They'll be at the game - not rooting for their hometown team.

The Super Bowl is famous for exotic "proposition'' bets, and this year brought an especially popular one: How many times will CBS show Peyton Manning's father, Archie?

Bodog.com set an over/under of 2½, but heavy betting on the over caused the number to rise to 41/2, and also led the site to sweeten the odds to entice "over'' betting.

"We based the [original] number on last year's for [Kurt's wife] Brenda Warner,'' Bodog sports book manager Richard Gardner told CNBC.

Two years ago, Fox showed Archie less often than it might have if it hadn't found Peyton in another suite rooting hard for his brother Eli and the Giants.

It's a good bet Eli the fan will be less emotive than Peyton was.

Archie heard about the prop bet from a friend. "Maybe they won't find us," he told CNBC. "We'll see."

CBS kicks off its Super Sunday slate with "Road to the Super Bowl'' at noon and Phil Simms' "All-Iron Team'' at 1, followed by the official four-hour pregame.

Highlights include Bill Cowher's prison interview of Plaxico Burress and Katie Couric's interview of Barack Obama, presumably after he is done shoveling the White House driveway.

ESPN's four-hour pregame starts at 10 a.m. and includes this intriguing feature at 1: "Sport Science'' will analyze which famous Super Bowl catch was more difficult - David Tyree's in 2008 or Santonio Holmes' last year.

The NFL Network counters with what it modestly is calling "The Longest Pregame Show in History,'' from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The most compelling counterprogramming is, as always, Puppy Bowl VI, on Animal Planet. Get the scoop starting at 3.

This is the second Super Bowl together for CBS' Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, who also worked the 2007 game, which also featured the Colts and also was at Sun Life Stadium.

Actually, it was called Dolphin Stadium then. And Pro Player Stadium for Super Bowl XXXIII. And Joe Robbie Stadium for Super Bowls XXIII and XXIX.

(Cool Nantz trivia: He attended the first Saints game ever as an 8-year-old at Tulane Stadium on Sept. 17, 1967.)

CBS hopes one change from last time is the weather; some camera shots for Super Bowl XLI were obscured by raindrops.

Unlike in the regular season, the network will deploy sideline reporters - Steve Tasker and Solomon Wilcots.

Marv Albert and Boomer Esiason handle the radio call on Westwood One and Sirius XM will carry 14 different radio accounts in 10 languages, including Hungarian and Danish.

Kickoff is scheduled for 6:28 p.m., which likely is a tad optimistic.

What will be this year's annoyingly over-promoted post-Super Bowl network offering? It's "Undercover Boss,'' a reality show in which executives secretly work among the masses.

No, the premiere does not feature Newsday's publisher writing a Super Bowl sidebar on deadline. It's about the COO of Waste Management presumably, um, managing waste.

One of CBS' challenges will be squeezing in replays without missing a live snap, thanks to the Colts' no-huddle offense and Peyton Manning's tendency to adjust on the fly.

"There always is a lot of stress when Indy has the ball,'' director Mike Arnold said, "magnified by it being the Super Bowl.''

At the risk of befuddling viewers under 30 - or even 40 - the NFL again will trot out a halftime act deep into late middle age.

The Who's first hit was two years before Super Bowl I. Carrie Underwood, who was born the year after the band's 1982 "farewell tour,'' will sing the national anthem.

By far the most discussed ad is one that features Tim Tebow and is expected to deliver a gentle pro-life/anti-abortion message.

Also set for the first quarter: A Bud Light ad in which a man builds a house out of beer cans.