Journalist and famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison once said, "The success of any great moral enterprise does not depend upon numbers."
   That may be fine for great moral enterprises, but for almost everything else numbers do matter. For the Super Bowl, perhaps the biggest story in media in these days leading up to the game, numbers are especially illustrative. Though we have to admit we're not sure of quite what. We leave it to our gentle readers to determine where the Super Bowl falls in terms of moral enterprises. 
    With this in mind, and with apologies to Harper’s Index, we present the Super Bowl, by the numbers.

    Number of commercial spots left unsold, as of January 18, 2001: 1.
     Total minutes of game-time in an NFL contest: 60.
      Total minutes of commercial time during broadcast of Super Bowl XXXV: 30.
    Las Vegas oddsmakers’ point spread, in favor of AFC champion Baltimore Ravens: +3.
   Number of Super Bowls since 1985 won by an AFC team: 2.
   Number of years the Baltimore Ravens have existed: 5.
    National rank of the New York media market: 1.
    National rank of the Baltimore media market: 24.
    Number of times a New York team has appeared in the Super Bowl: 3.
     Pounds of guacamole Americans eat on a typical Super Bowl Sunday: 8 million.
   Tons of chips consumed on Super Bowl Sunday: 14,500.
    Super Bowl Sunday’s rank among heaviest food-consumption days: 2.
    Increase in antacid sales the day after Super Bowl Sunday: 20 percent.
    Average number of people attending a Super Bowl party: 17.
     Percentage of people who watch the Super Bowl with at least one other person: 95.
   Percentage of people who will call in sick to work the day after the Super Bowl: 6.
   Number of Super Bowls in the top ten most-watched television programs ever: 9.
   Rank of last year’s Super Bowl among most-watched television programs ever: 5.
    Number of dot.coms advertising on Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000: 17.
    Number of dot.coms advertising on Super Bowl XXXV in 2001: 3.
    Number of dot.coms advertising on Super Bowl XXXIV that are no longer around for Super Bowl XXXV: 2.
    Percentage of viewers who say they pay more attention to ads during the Super Bowl than usual: 58.
    Percentage of viewers who say they pay more attention to the ads than to the game: 16.
   Percentage of viewers who were able to recall, one month later, which dot.coms advertised on last year’s Super Bowl: 17.
   Hours of pre-game programming on CBS Super Bowl weekend: 14.
   Approximate ticket price for Super Bowl I in 1967: $6.
   Approximate ticket price for Super Bowl XXXV in 2001: $325.
   Average cost of a 30-second commercial during Super Bowl I: $42,000.
    First year that every 30-second commercial cost at least a million dollars: 1996.
   Average cost of a 30-second commercial during Super Bowl XXXV: $2.3 million.
   Amount the networks paid in 1998 for rights to air NFL games for eight years: $17.6 billion.
    Ratings decline from 1980 to 2000 for baseball’s World Series: 59 percent.
   Ratings decline from 1980 to 2000 for the Super Bowl: 6 percent.
    Average household share throughout 1990s for baseball’s World Series: 27.9.
    Average household share throughout 1990s for the Super Bowl: 64.2.
    Percentage of Super Bowl XXXIV’s audience that were adults age 18-49: 53.
    Percentage of Super Bowl XXXIV’s audience that were women over 50: 14.
    Increase in total viewers from kickoff to game’s end in last year’s Super Bowl: 18 million.
   Highest rating for a program shown after the Super Bowl, for "Friends" in 1996: 29.6/46.
   Number of consecutive years Anheuser-Busch has been the exclusive beer advertiser on the Super Bowl: 13.
    Cost of the Vince Lombardi Trophy: $12,000.
     Number of past Super Bowls broadcast on CBS: 12.
    Stadium seating capacity for Super Bowl XXXV: 72,000.
    Expected total TV viewership for Super Bowl XXXV: 135 million.
    Income Super Bowl XXXIV generated for host state of Georgia: $292 million.
    Income CBS expects from ad sales for Super Bowl programming this year: $150 million.

    This is a huge pack of numbers and, media people being media people, we expect we'll receive a number of fired-up emails challenging this or that figure. We'll welcome them all and print them all. If you have Super Bowl numbers that we've left out, please feel free to send them in. We'll print them as well.

-Gabriel Spitzer is a staff writer for Media Life.

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