Matt Freed, Post-Gazette Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, diving into the end zone for a second-quarter touchdown last night, is about to score big in the advertising world. Click photo for larger image.

DETROIT -- The Steelers won the Super Bowl, and Ben Roethlisberger has hit the jackpot because of it. Pittsburgh's quarterback is about to become America's.

Roethlisberger will fly out of Pontiac, Mich., at 1 p.m. today to tape an appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman" tonight. He may show up cleanly shaven because Gillette was in negotiations to have him shave his whiskers with one of that company's razors.

That's only the beginning. Leigh Steinberg, Roethlisberger's agent, estimated his client will earn about $20 million over the next few years because of the victory last night and what he has done in his first two seasons as their quarterback.

"The Super Bowl is the premier marketing event for any American athlete," Steinberg said. "The Super Bowl transcends the hard-core sports fans to reach out and have one person become a household name. It's because you have thousands of print and electronic media figures -- not strictly in sports but in lifestyle and business -- filing endless numbers of stories. One person can cross over out of sports and into household-name status. That effect is felt for years."

Steinberg said Roethlisberger earned $4.5 million as a rookie merely with smaller endorsements and his one big endorsement deal with Nike. They did not want to overload him as a rookie, nor do anything this past season. But Roethlisberger and Ryan Tollner, a partner who handles his marketing, are prepared to break into the heavy machinery now.

"We saved all the major product categories," Steinberg said. "We did not commit to any long-term deals. We saved it all hoping that this would happen. So that money came from signings, Nike, T-shirts, the barbecue sauce, the beef jerky, the around-the-margin stuff. Now, he has a clean slate. This is the model we used with Troy Aikman and Steve Young. In 1993, Troy Aikman walked onto the field in Pasadena to play the Buffalo Bills as a very good quarterback. When he left the field, his life was altered forever. He became Troy Aikman in glittering lights. So, what's happened with Ben is that, what Pittsburgh knew, the whole country is getting to know, and his charm and his youthful exuberance, in this age with athletic misbehavior and misconduct off the field, has contrasted so well."

There also is the unquenchable thirst of Steelers fans for all things Steelers.

"The other aspect of this is the amazing mania of the Steeler Nation, both in Pittsburgh and nationwide because their purchasing power is extraordinary," Steinberg said. "We put a T-shirt out last year, and it sold 400,000 copies in Pittsburgh. That's more sales than there are people in Pittsburgh. The appetite of Steelers fans to purchase anything associated with Pittsburgh, especially with Ben, fuels an incredible amount of endorsement potential."

In other words, Roethlisberger is on the right team at the right time.

"Pittsburgh is a gateway team," Steinberg said. "There are only three or four of them in the country. And Pittsburgh fans are everywhere, and they've been waiting for a long, long time. And Ben is their homegrown own. He's theirs. Also, this is the first young star to emerge in football for a while. Ben mania, like Steelers mania, is catching on. People are getting a chance to know him, and they like him, his light-hearted nature, the fact he's not too big for his britches, he doesn't take himself that seriously."