While it’s fair to say this Sunday’s Super Bowl XLI doesn’t need any help in the way of promotion, that doesn’t mean the strong arm of the social media “association” (the blogosphere) hasn’t embraced the event wholeheartedly… and that’s including the advertising portion.

Before we touch on the marketing aspects of Super Bowl Sunday ($2.6 million for a 30-second spot), the coverage prior to the game should be mentioned as well. Because of the two-week delay between the conference finals and the final game, writers and bloggers alike have a great deal of time to discuss just about every facet of what makes the Super Bowl, well, super.

One such sports blog – Deadspin – attacked this opportunity with a zeal rarely seen around the ole ‘sphere; and because of AJ Daulerio’s superhuman efforts, we now have some of the best pre-Super Bowl coverage anyone can ask for. Daulerio’s focused primarily on the circus that makes up the various media days each team has to deal with while preparing for the big game… well, that and the infinite celebrity/professional athlete-laced parties that also took place.

This particular Daulerio entry seems to capture the week’s mood quite nicely.

However, media coverage of the media coverage (and everything else that entailed) is not the only way a viral outlet has been used to embrace the Super Bowl. As you know, the game itself is not the only reason the event gets so much hype. Another one of the primary reasons for tuning in is to see the commercials by various different companies willing to pay such extremely large amounts of money to get word out about their products.

During the last few Super Bowls, a number of Internet-based companies have thrown their hat (along with their advertising budget) into this expensive ring, with GoDaddy and Monster.com probably the most memorable.

This year, some of the growing Web 2.0 Internet companies are doing Super Bowl ads as well, but they aren’t going through the NFL or CBS. Instead, these companies are using probably one of the most powerful viral Internet tools on the planet: YouTube.com.

A group consiting of Technorati, meebo, Meez, Multiply, Plaxo, and RockYou.com has decided against paying the astronomical fees associated with advertising during the Super Bowl. What they did was start a YouTube channel called SuperDotComAdsXLI that features commercials for each company (there’s even one for Technorati’s WTF feature that makes brilliant use of The Big Lebowski).

Aside – YouTube is also having an event that’s planned around the Super Bowl commercials called SuperVote, which starts after the game ends.

Obviously, these examples provide only the smallest glimpse of the coverage XLI is getting, even from the blogosphere. From Daluerio’s balls-out coverage to making commercials for the game without paying the price, from a social media perspective, the Super Bowl is quite the cornucopia.

Update: Another popular sports blog – Kissing Suzy Kolber (named after this incident) – posted a video from ESPN that clearly demonstrates just how popular many of these blogs are becoming.