As Senior Alex Penn watched the first half of the 2017 Super Bowl, she felt like her favorite team, the New England Patriots, were expecting an easy victory. However, at the end of the first half of the game the Atlanta Falcons had 21 points while the Patriots had only 3 points.

In the second half, the Patriots had stormed to take back the game going into overtime. Then the Patriots scored the winning point in overtime. The room erupted in loud cheers and celebration.

Most people remember the Super Bowl for moments like that. But, beside the actual game and halftime show, there is one other thing it’s recognizable for: the commercials.  

Every year, top companies put millions into a 30-second to minute-long ad selling sell their product to viewers at home. According to Bloomberg, nearly one-third of the Super Bowl broadcast is made up of commercials.

These commercials stick in everybody’s mind even days after the Super Bowl has ended.

Junior Chris Merritt, who watches the Super Bowl  for both the game and the commercials, says his favorite ad is “the Coke commercial where the polar bears are sliding around to get the coke.”

However, there has been some debate on whether or not  the commercials are getting better or worse.

Penn believes that the commercials are getting better as time goes on.

“They are giving the people what they want,” Penn said.

Junior Tim De Leon disagrees with Penn.

“I don’t remember laughing as much as last year,” De Leon said. “Maybe they are running out of ideas.”       

This year’s Super Bowl featured the New England Patriots against the Atlanta Falcons, with Lady Gaga as the halftime performer.

Commercials included several for movies including “Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2” “Pirates of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and “The Fate of The Furious.” There was also an ad advertising “Stranger Things 2” on Netflix, which is set to come out Halloween.

T-Mobile had four ads, including one featuring Justin Bieber dancing alongside the Patriots Rob Gronkowski and NFL six-time Pro Bowler Terrell Owens. The second one featured Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart while the others threw shade to Verizon with a “Fifty Shades of Grey” parody done by Kristen Schaal.

Some students, like junior Preston Miller, weren’t all too impressed by the commercials this year.

This year’s ads were  “not as good as last year’s but they weren’t awful,” Miller said.

Politics were also present in several commercials.  Coke reprised a 2014 ad that portrayed the diversity of the country.

Another from Lumber 84 was so controversial that Fox asked them to change the ending. The ad showed an immigrant mother and daughter traveling through Mexico to reach the U.S.

The televised ad did not show the end of a journey, but an online version shows the pair reaching the border only to find a wall. A door opens, allowing them to enter.

At first, the ad was interpreted as opposing a border wall proposal by President Donald Trump. However, Maggie Hardy Magerko, owner and CEO of 84 Lumber, later said she backs the proposed wall and didn’t intend to make a political statement.

Some fans though didn’t feel like politics was needed during the big game. One of these fans was senior Vinny Izquierdo.

“Politics should stay out of big events like these for everyone’s sake,” Izquierdo said. “These are for everyone’s enjoyment and to get away from it.”