The Super Bowl, glowing like a mythical treasure, is exerting its spell on the teams competing for the winning slot on January 30, 2000. As the field narrows, the stakes get bigger and the tension mounts. Organizations are pouring all their resources into this one event, and the non-stop action is already producing burnout in some of the best talent.

OK, so we're not talking quarterbacks and defensive linemen. We're on the countdown to that event within the event in the Super Bowl of Spots: the most important four hours of the year for the commercial media industry. Some 125 million people are projected to tune in to the game. With the increasingly fragmented viewing habits of the American public, this is perhaps the most highly focused national television spectacle there is today.

Sports fanatics certainly are riveted on the intricacies of the game, but a smaller, though no less opinionated group, is scrutinizing the commercials that run during the Super Bowl on a second-by-second basis, noticing every tiny executional detail and every large creative concept.

"It's the most widely viewed television experience in the US. It's a great American institution to be associated with," acknowledges Colin Hickson, executive producer and VP at Propaganda Films.

"It's really fun to watch the game with friends and family and say, 'I did that spot.' There is so much money spent on it, for me, being in the business, it's definitely more interesting to watch the commercials; the game is usually boring," laughs Bill Sandwick, executive producer of HSI.

John Myers of Ring of Fire agrees: "The last four or five years, everyone is hanging out and chatting it up during the game and when the commercials come on, everyone goes silent and people jump around the TV. It's amazing - it's become an award show of its own."

As much as directors may salivate over the chance to strut their stuff before an audience of 125 million, production companies are wary of accepting assignments with a weak concept precisely because of the high visibility.

"We've seen a good deal of Super Bowl boards this year," relates Stephen Orent, executive producer/partner at Hungry Man. "Some, we were unable to accept due to scheduling, but some just couldn't be done right for the amount of money available."

Most production companies agree with Orent's conclusion that, "at the end of the day, nobody knows how much money you spent on that spot; they know what the end product is, and you don't want to have a spot on the Super Bowl that sucks."

"Opportunities for Super Bowl spots only come around once a year, and there's a very limited amount of them. They are prestigious jobs to do by virtue of the fact that it's a showcase for the agency and the director in the most public arena. That's why they are vital. But at the end of the day, it's all about great ideas," insists Propaganda's Hickson.

"The year I really remember is the year we did a Coke commercial that was rated the worst by the USA Today poll," groans HSI's Sandwick. "The headline was 'Pepsi Soars, Coke Flunks.' It was funny, but it shows that in the Super Bowl, humorous ideas and little ideas go over well with that crowd; high-concept stuff can tank. The Coke spot was more of a sensitive portrait. It was wrong for beer-drinking football watchers.