The NFL’s granddaddy of them all takes place this Sunday when the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers meet in Super Bowl XLV, and it promises to be one of the most-watched sporting events ever.  Keeping with tradition, the commercials that will be shown during the game are receiving a fair amount of hype as well.

In fact, some say the only reason they even watch the Super Bowl is for the commercials. Whether that’s true or not, the sheer cost of these adverts — $3 million for 30 seconds of airtime — have helped spawn a culture of Super Bowl watchers who pay active attention to the products being hawked when the game takes one of its many commercial breaks.

Oh, and we weren’t just spouting hyperbole about Super Bowl XLV being one of the most-watched televised events, either.  Last year’s record of 110 million viewers — an all-time high for TV program — is expected to be eclipsed.

Like Bloomberg points out, if you’re ads will be playing in front of record-sized audience, $3 million is something of a bargain.

As for the commercials themselves, the anticipation is apparently at an all-time high as well.  What else would explain Audi developing three and four minute trailers for commercials that won’t run as long as the productions promoting them?

In the Washington Post, there’s a list of the ten most anticipated commercials, and although they concentrate more on the companies involved than on the ads themselves, it’s a good guide of what you can expect.

Currently, the buzz is around the following companies:

Audi
Anheuser-Busch
Best Buy
CareerBuilder.com
E-Trade
GoDaddy
Pepsi
Skechers
Snickers
Volkswagen

Naturally, your intrepid WebProNews crew wasn’t satisfied with text descriptions of what we can expect, so we jumped on YouTube and found video footage for most, if not all, of these anticipated commercials. Enjoy.

Audi — here a couple of the trailers mentioned above.  Welcome back Kenny G:

A-B/Budweiser — unfortunately, there wasn’t much footage of Anheuser-Busch’s Super Bowl offering, so here’s a cute ad they’ve already released this year:

Best Buy — the electronics retail king is releasing a Justin Bieber/Ozzy Osbourne collaboration thing, and although it hasn’t leaked, there are some web reports about it:

CareerBuilder.com — it looks like the job site is continuing their tradition of offering underrated, amusing gems:

E-Trade — the talking baby is back, or never going away, depending on your perspective, and this is the uncensored version of what we’ll be seeing on Sunday:

GoDaddy — yay, more faux titillation from everybody’s favorite domain registration company.  This year, Jillian Michaels joins the crew:

Pepsi — they cola company has an Eminem/Lipton Brisk claymation offering, of which there is absolutely no footage.  They’re also showing their “Pepsi Max: Crash the Super Bowl” winner, which apparently came from this group (?):

Skechers — the trendy shoe company is — *gasp* — using a trendy spokesperson, Kim Kardashian, for their multi-million dollar investment.  The enablers at E! are all over it:

Snickers — keeping with their Betty White/Abe Vigoda commercial, this year’s offering brings Richard Lewis and Roseanne Barr back into our households.  Is this reason to rejoice or turn it to Puppy Bowl VII?  It depends on your tolerance level for people that talk with their hands and sassy “housewife” types:

Volkswagen — this is truly saving the best for last.  By now, this commercial is pretty viral — over 5 million views on YouTube already — but it could very well go down as one of the best Super Bowl commercials ever; and no, that’s not just the Star Wars fan who drives a Jetta talking, either:

And then there are all the movie trailers that will be shown, of which, there are many, including Captain America and Super 8. 

After the game, if you’d like to react to the commercials you’ve seen — Game?  What game? — there are a multitude of channels you can do so, including AdBlitz’ YouTube channel where users can vote for their favorite.  The winning commercial will be crowned accordingly.

What are some of your favorite Super Bowl commercials from previous years?  Let us know in the comments.