It's Super Bowl Sunday, which means it's time to cheer Cincinnati's undisputed champions — our arts.

        Pro arts creamed pro sports in attendance last year.

        In 2001, the Bengals counted up 547,000 in attendance, including pre-season games.

        Our professional performing arts — theater, symphony, dance — pulled in more than 1,050,000.

        And while the Reds totaled an impressive 1,879,872 gate, add up the people who visited museums — Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Museum Center, Taft Museum of Art, Contemporary Arts Center — and that number comes darned close — 1,800,000.

        Add it up — 2,850,000 admissions to performing and visual arts in 2001. Multiply those numbers by an economic impact formula and people shouldn't just sit up and take notice, they should stand up and cheer.

        Yup, growls arts QB Ed Stern, producing artistic director at Playhouse in the Park. “There are almost daily headlines asking, "Can the Bengals have a winning season this year?' The arts have winning seasons every year and the people know it. They're speaking by putting fannies in seats. They're more enlightened than the major daily and the political and corporate machinery.”

        A big problem for arts in a winner/loser world is that arts don't keep score. They don't pay stratospheric salaries. Their every move isn't couched in heroic terms.

        If arts were a game, everybody would win, starting with the city, which could enjoy bragging rights about something.

For Kelli Fournier, Broadway was a happy accident
'Aida' creates Egypt with lighting, fluid set
Building a community
Disabled workers part of Cintas team
Doc Severinsen will pop in for his 75th birthday
Funnyman turns serious about letter from dad
Looking for face of courage in WWII veterans
Red grapes ripe with promise for winery
Another winning season for the regions' arts
Blue Wisp looks for new spot
DEMALINE: The arts
Leary adds edge to cops on 'The Job'
Pops celebrates patriotic summer
'Tempest' earnest telling of a classic
Hotel restaurants offer Valentine's Day packages
MARTIN: Food stuff
Get to it