Blue

I'm not the person to ask. But that's not how I remember it.

I'll leave the piece here if you want. I watched a few superbowls in the past when I was in Canada but I don't get the appeal. Not even because it is "needlessly popular". I couldn't stand Hockey fans in Canada but at least I could see an appeal to the sport.

https://qz.com/150577/an-average-nfl-game-more-than-100-commercials-and-just-11-minutes-of-play/

That only counts when the ball has been snapped. Which is like counting football matches in between passes. 

When it come to adverts, it depends on the broadcaster and the Superbowl is the worst for it.

American Football is incredibly tactical and requires varying levels of fitness and form to play. Its not just a bunch of guys playing line stop and moving upwards but more of decisions by coaches in offensive/defensive positions which have to be followed by players to the T for any kind of positive outcome. I used to think there were way too many stops till I spent time reading up on the rules and why teams do what they do, have to say I quite like the sport but I don't watch much of it anymore even though I probably could. I think A.Football coaches do a lot more real-time work in the sport than most other sports imo.

As for the Superbowl ad situation, lets put it this way, you have an entire country watching an event with the biggest TV coverage outside national holidays and it is a ripe moment to plug anything to the masses. If you had a chance to get a message to an entire country and knew they'd all be glued in I'd imagine you'd take the chance at a dear cost. Does it ruin the sport? Probably. But do you really think companies give two shits when they take 1 out of 365 days to ensure their product is being sold? I say no.