A nearly empty hallway is seen Wednesday at the Tampa Convention Center as the city prepares for Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa, Fla. Even the richest league and the glitziest event in American sports are feeling the effects of a tailspinning economy.

Tampa, Fla. ? There were mountains of jumbo shrimp, and caviar everywhere. Five-star hotels were packed, and getting a dinner reservation for Saturday night was impossible. Finding a ticket for Sunday was even harder.

In years past, the Super Bowl was so much more than a game. It was an outright orgy of football, glitz and gluttony, a celebration of excess.

The No. 1 sporting event in America is still a big deal. Nearly 100 million of us will tune in Sunday night when the Pittsburgh Steelers play the Arizona Cardinals.

But in these tough economic times, it’s easy to see: The Super Bowl is taking a hit, too.

General Motors and FedEx pulled their TV ads, even though NBC lowered the price. Playboy canceled its annual party. Almost 200 fewer media credentials were issued.

“When I think of the NFL, I think of recession-proof,” Cardinals lineman Elliot Vallejo said this week. “But that’s not true anymore.”

It used to be everywhere you looked around a Super Bowl town, all you could see was advertising. Now you can look pretty much everywhere and actually see things. Such as empty tables at local restaurants and vacant hotel rooms downtown.

On the other hand, it might be cheaper to go to the game.

While tickets are still pricey — about 15,000 at a record $1,000 apiece, and 53,000 at $800 each — another 1,000 cost $500 — down from last year’s low of $700, the first cut in Super Bowl history.

And tickets that cost $2,500 or more from scalpers and brokers could be selling at face value by kickoff.

In a week or so, the NFL plans to make a more painful cut, reducing 10 percent of its staff.

“These are difficult and painful steps,” commissioner Roger Goodell recently wrote in a memo to employees. “But they are necessary in the current economic environment. I would like to be able to report that we are immune to the troubles around us, but we are not.”

Still the gold standard in sports worldwide, the league with annual revenues of $6.5 billion is paying the price.

But with television money already locked in and most tickets committed in advance, the NFL is far from struggling.

The league won’t feel the biggest effects from the recession until it’s time for fans to renew and buy season tickets.