WASHINGTON (AP) – Pigskin and politics. It’s an audience Barack Obama couldn’t ignore.

Obama, neck and neck with Hillary Rodham Clinton heading into Tuesday’s nominating contests, is airing ads during the Super Bowl in television markets serving 24 states that are in play on Super Tuesday and beyond.

The 30-second ad is a summary of Obama’s political message, played against images of crowds of supporters, despair in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina’s destruction.

“We want an end to this war and we want diplomacy and peace,’ Obama says in a voice over from a speech in Austin, Texas. “Not only can we save the environment, we can create jobs and opportunity. We’re tired of fear; we’re tired of division. We want something new. We want to turn the page. The world as it is is not the world as it has to be.”

With the Super Bowl being played two days before Super Tuesday, speculation had been growing about which campaign, if any, would take the plunge and make a pitch to such a huge television audience. More than 90 million viewers are expected to watch the New England Patriots take on the New York Giants.

No campaign bought a national ad with Fox Sports, which is televising the game. Doing so would have put a political ad in direct competition with slick Madison Avenue productions. Obama aides said the regionalized purchase of ads was far less expensive than the nearly $3 million a national ad on Fox Sports would have cost.

Audiences in several of the Super Tuesday states can be reached through a handful of stations whose markets cross state boundaries.

Clinton and Obama, the fundraising leaders in the presidential race, are spending at a rate of more than $1.5 million a day on advertising for Tuesday’s primaries and caucuses.

“It’s very uptempo and it’s not too political,” political ad analyst Evan Tracey said of Obama’s ad. “It’s a come-join-with-me, get-out-of-your-chair message.”

Clinton is running ads during the Super Bowl’s pre-game show. Her campaign plans a different type of advertising splash, however. It has bought an hour of time Monday night on the Hallmark Channel to air a town hall meeting live from New York. The town hall also will be broadcast live online on hillaryclinton.com.

Political advertising during the Super Bowl is rare.

Last year, VoteVets.org, a group critical of the Iraq war, aired a 30-second Super Bowl ad opposed to troop increases in Iraq. It ran on just three CBS affiliates — in Washington, D.C.; Portland, Maine; and Duluth, Minn. To air the ad on one Washington station, the biggest market of the three, cost $91,000.

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On the Net:

http://my.barackobama.com/sb-join