The Super Bowl isn't known just for being the most important sporting event of the year that for the most part only Americans care about, but it is also known as the time of year when companies pay sick money for advertising space and the people who make the best ones are sitting this year's Super Bowl out.
The "Bud Bowl" games were sometimes better than the actual game that was being played in the Super Bowl.
Aside from this commercial time being extremely lucrative for the network, it also seems like a competition among the various advertisers to see who can have the "best" commercial of the entire mix. Tons of money is spent not just on the advertisement time, but in the creation of the advert in the first place. This is probably most evident on the part of the big 3, all of which are sitting the Super Bowl out this year.
Budweiser came out and said that they are not interested in advertising because this year is not a time for celebration due to Covid and instead will donate the advertising money that they would normally spend on the commercials to Covid - call me a skeptic but I doubt they donate as much as the commercials would normally cost them. They are also getting a ton of free publicity from this move, quite possibly more than they would get from the commercials themselves.
Pepsi is not advertising but has made no promise of donating money, they are focusing their efforts on the halftime show, which is sponsored by Pepsi.
Coke has also made no announcement about donating anything to anyone - the company has been hit hard by restaurant, stadium, and movie theater closures worldwide and are simply making a wise financial move.
At the end of the day I disagree with people about this not being a time to celebrate and I think to a certain degree that Budweiser is lying. One factor that all 3 companies are not acknowledging is that even though NFL did it to a lessor degree, the BLM factor and taking a knee during the national anthem has taken its toll on viewership in a big way, with many fans refusing to watch anything that the NFL has anything to do with.
There is also going to be a very limited amount of people in the stands this year, so the "big game" might not be as big as these advertisers would like.
For me, the commercials during the Super Bowl were always a lot of fun and companies really went out of their way to make the best ones just for this time. It's a shame that some of the best companies are sitting it out, but it never made much sense to me that someone would pay a million dollars for a 30 second advertisement slot anyway.