Big game.

NBC drubbed the competition with its Sunday night football TV broadcast, its first featuring the former Monday Night Football hosts AI Michaels and John Madden. More than 20 million viewers tuned in.

The sales numbers for Madden's football video game are even more impressive, at least financially. Electronic Arts Inc. said that the game grossed more than $100 million in its first week, the biggest launch in the franchise's 17-year history.

EA, the world's largest video game publisher, said consumers snapped up more than 2 million copies of "Madden NFL '07 in its opening week, up 12 percent from last year's game launch. To date, more than 53 million copies of the game have been sold.

While a handful of other game titles have had more successful openings--Microsoft Corp. said its "Halo 2" game reached $125 million in sales within the first 24 hours in 2004--the through-the-roof interest in the Madden game is good news for game makers who are struggling amid a console transition period. EA, like locally based publishers THQ Inc. and Activision Inc., have seen sales suffer as consumers have delayed purchases until the expected release later this year of next-generation consoles, PlayStation 3 from Sony Corp. and Wii from Nintendo Co.