When Super Bowl XLII game hits the eyeballs of 158 million Americans this Sunday, its television images will have winded their way through enough high-tech gee-gaws to launch a squadron of space shuttles. The super broadcast racks up some super numbers, many of which are laid down for you right here — hit Continue for some amazing Super Bowl statistics that are sure to impress your friends at your party.

More than a billion viewers will watch the game, in 223 countries and territories, thanks to 57 international broadcasters. Who says the rest of the world doesn't care about American football?

$170.1 million worth of commercials sold by Fox: There will be 63 ads interrupting the game (or you might say the game will interrupt the 63 commercials), and for each 30-second spot, Fox will collect $2.7 million. Yikes, that's $90,000 per second.

A rolling 18.9 million-pound tray (that's 9450 tons) holds the 63,400-seat University of Phoenix Stadium field. It will slide outside the stadium (a 45-minute process) to get some sun and maybe a bit of rain while the Fox techs are trying to get everything set up, complicating matters significantly.

70 microphones will capture the 5.1-channel surround sound mix, with new Neural-THX Surround that delivers multichannel sound by encoding it into a stereo mix that can be decoded back into true, discrete 5.1 at the receiving end.

53 feet: That's a common length for most of the six semi tractor-trailer trucks covering the game and the pre-game broadcasts. The main 53-footer has 122 Samsung 21-inch flatscreen monitors aboard, displaying 40 cameras to the director this year. Among them will be 18 big Sony HDCS-3000 studio-style cameras, Ikegami HL-40 robo cams, lots of handheld cameras, and up to six Sony HDCS 3300 super slow-motion cameras shooting at 300 frames per second (when shooting at night, 1000fps by day).

50-yard line: Here resides Fox Jumper, a brand new addition this year to the Super Bowl. Fox isn't talking much about details, but says this tech can somehow zoom in on selected areas of the field. Must use really high-res HD, and maybe a bit of smoke and mirrors. We'll be looking out for this one.

But isn't the game itself the main event, rather than all this high technology? Jerry Steinberg, vice president field operations for Fox Sports, the guy in charge of all those gadgets, thinks so. "The main thing is that content has to drive the bus, not the technology.”

Via Television Broadcast, TV Technology, and Audioholics