There was one set of DNA on every football used in Sunday's Super Bowl. And no, it was not, as expected, that of Marshall Faulk.

The NFL employed a Canadian company to mark with DNA each of the 120 footballs used in the Super Bowl in a high-tech defence against counterfeiting.

DNA Technologies, a division of Halifax-based CrossOff Incorporated, applied synthetic DNA material to each football as it came off the field. The balls were then numbered and taken to a secure location.

"You don't need 120 footballs for a football game, but it's memorabilia," says Thomas A. Nicolette, president and CEO of DNA Technologies. "It's a surprisingly huge market. Until I got into this, I didn't know how many people collected this stuff, and how much it was worth."

The company also protected all licensed merchandising for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. As a result, Nicolette says of the US$700-million of merchandise sales, only 1% was lost to counterfeiting. The 1996 Atlanta Olympics estimated a rate of loss closer to 40%.

Nicolette says that while the FBI estimates 70% of all sports merchandise isn't authentic, faking the DNA tag is almost impossible.

"It's like walking up to the Library of Congress and giving you a paragraph from a book in the Library of Congress," he says. "Could you go find it? Maybe. But the odds are billions to one."

DNA Technologies also has a contract with the NHL, and just signed a deal with the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The next step may be the creation of fast-track identification for sports fans who will pay to avoid lineups and metal detectors by being pre-cleared beforehand.

"Unfortunately, we're in a pretty good sector," Nicolette says. "All the security-related companies are doing pretty well these days."

SUPER BOWL TV RATINGS

Fox Television's telecast of the New England Patriots' 20-17 victory over the St. Louis Rams on Sunday night registered exactly the same numbers as last year's game: a 40.4 national rating and 61 share.

That means an average of 40.4% of American homes with televisions were watching at any given moment, and 61% of in-use televisions were tuned to the game.