Super Sunday: Panthers... Patriots... Poker

Are you trying to host the coolest Super Bowl party this year? Maybe you should consider showing your guests some of the programming a pair of poker companies has lined up.

Invite your guests over early for some wings and beer, and maybe think about skipping CBS's pre-game show. From 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. (EST), NBC will broadcast the World Poker Tour for the first time ever on network television.

The World Poker Tour, which will embark on its second season in March, became the most watched series in the Travel Channel's history in only its first season last year. NBC is betting the massively popular show that combines sports-style production and commentary with bluffs, bets and lots of money will be a smashing success with football fans.

But don't expect a typical episode of the World Poker Tour on Super Bowl Sunday. This airing will be a special Battle of Champions, pitting the winners of last season's 13 tournaments against each other in the elegant Bellagio in Las Vegas. The winner can consider himself the ultimate poker master (at least for the first season) and will take home a six-figure cash prize and a chance to compete in the Next World Poker Tour Championship, which will have a prize pool worth millions of dollars.

And the winner should be crowned just in time for you to catch the star spangled banner and the first half of football action.

But if your party is the type that finds the family oriented half-time show a lame supplement to the beautiful savagery of the football season's climax, then perhaps you might enjoy the sort of entertainment that PartyPoker.com is sponsoring as an alternative.

The first inaugural Lingerie Bowl, a Party Poker-sponsored pay-per-view extravaganza, will feature 26 nearly naked female models and actresses battling in a game of seven-on-seven tackle football. But be sure to warn your guests that the competition might not measure up the grueling NFL standards; the girls of the Lingerie Bowl were recently featured on an segment of E-Channel's Wild on E!, and they seem more interested in ripping the uniforms off their opponents than in throwing blocks and launching aerial assaults. (Did I mention this is a pay-per-view event?)

Supermodel Angie Everheart will lead the pink Team Euphoria as its captain and quarterback, while Nikki Ziering will do the same for the blue Team Dream.

The Lingerie Bowl's producers have enlisted NFL Hall of Famers Lawrence Taylor and Eric Dickerson to coach the teams, ring announcer Michael Buffer to introduce the players, Fox sports commentator Mike Goldberg to provide play-by-play, Tracy Bingham and Kylie Bax to provide sideline commentary and Emmy award-winning Super Bowl producer Sandy Gross to direct the broadcast. A portion of the profits will be donated to the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

The presentation will also feature a celebrity red-carpet rollout and player vignettes, but those portions of the show will likely run into Super Bowl airtime.

And again, a winner will be declared just in time for you to change the channel to CBS to catch the second half of the game.