Sirius to broadcast Super Bowl in five languages

Sirius Satellite Radio on Thursday announced its plans to broadcast the Super Bowl live in five languages.

The play-by-play radio streaming of Sunday's championship game will be available in English, Spanish, German, Japanese and Mandarin to subscribers across the nation. Sirius already has an agreement with the National Football League to broadcast games over its satellite network.

In addition, the company plans to beam NFL special programming prior to the game. That programming will include interviews with players and coaches from the contending New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles, visits with NFL all-stars and live coverage of press conferences. The live programs will also be aired on the NFL's official game site.

Football fans attending the Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., will receive a transistor radio from Sirius as a souvenir. The radio can be tuned to special in-stadium feeds of Sirius NFL Radio, Fox TV and the NFL Network. During the game, fans will be able to listen to the audio of the Fox TV broadcast, the local and national radio broadcasts and the Spanish language broadcast. Fox TV has already agreed to supply a high-definition TV feed of the games to Comcast in the San Francisco Bay Area.

This year's Super Bowl will also be an opportunity to gauge whether blogs have arrived as a major medium. Cincinnati-based IntelliSeek is planning to deploy a panel of consumer bloggers to critique the commercials during the game.