Although several auto manufacturers have been hyping their Super Bowl commercials in advance of the actual game Sunday, a number of others that had bought the prominent ad time in past years are staying on the sidelines for Super Bowl XLIX.

If the last several Super Bowls have been any indication, Americans are more likely to watch the National Football League finale than they are anything else on television. Last year’s game, in which the Seattle Seahawks trounced the Denver Broncos, was – with more than 111 million viewers – the most-watched television event in US history.

So it stands to reason that Super Bowl advertising time is among the most expensive on television. This year, a 30-second slot goes for about $4.5m, up from an average of $4m last year. NBC announced on Wednesday that it had sold all of its ad time for the game. As usual, several automakers are among the network’s customers.

What is surprising, though, is the absence of several of them. For starters, neither General Motors nor Ford will be taking advantage of the presumably huge captive audience offered by Super Bowl XLIX.

Michelle Krebs, an analyst with Autotrader, said in an email that 11 automakers bought Super Bowl ad time last year, a peak that has decreased by nearly half. She said timing had a lot to do with the decision to forego the big game day.

“Auto companies try to tie Super Bowl ads with a specific product, typically a product that is soon to be launched,” she said. “The timing of the Super Bowl is off for some of those launches. We’ve seen a lot of them packed into summer and the last half of the year. Super Bowl is too early for some of those since the shopper will be let down by the vehicle not being on sale yet.”

This could be the most watched Super Bowl in history, said Steve Had, vice president of automotive marketing at IHS Automotive – an industry analysis firm. Viewership could exceed 115 million.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity to reach a lot of people all at one time,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’s a matter of targeting specific groups versus broad reach. The Super Bowl is not a targeted media property; it’s all about reach.”

Both analysts agreed that the high cost of buying ad time during the Super Bowl was a major factor in determining whether an automaker would stay or go. Had said that including the cost of production, a 30-second spot during the game could cost around $10m.

“That’s worth 30 ad units on primetime TV, where they can reach target audiences,” he said.

Although it did not purchase any ads this year, General Motors said it would have a more active role in the game. The automaker’s GMC truck brand is the official vehicle of Super Bowl XLIX, and the game’s most valued player will be awarded a new Chevrolet Colorado pickup.

“The date of the game did not line up with any of our major product launches this year, so we opted not to run an in-game spot this year,” GM said in a statement.

Other automakers that have confirmed they will be sitting out this year were Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti – Nissan’s luxury division – Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda and Volkswagen. VW – which has fielded a number of Super Bowl ads over the past few years – has been nipping at Toyota’s heels the past three years for bragging rights as the world’s largest automaker, but has lagged in US sales.

“Volkswagen is a great fan of the Super Bowl, and it has been a strong platform for the brand and our campaigns,” the automaker said in a statement. “However, for 2015 we have opted to not participate due to other priorities and initiatives across all platforms.”

Hyundai had been another big Super Bowl advertiser since 2007, commissioning two spots last year alone. But the South Korean automaker consigned itself to the bench for this year’s game.

“Our marketing calendar is simply shaping up differently this year as we look to align our media mix and advertising properties with product promotion goals,” Jim Trainor, a spokesman for Hyundai, said in an email.

Among the automakers that said they had purchased ad time were BMW, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Kia – which is affiliated with Hyundai – Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Toyota. But those companies – with the exception of Fiat Chrysler, which waited until Thursday to announce its intent to advertise – have already begun hyping their ads, racking up views on YouTube in advance of the game.

Fiat Chrysler has spent big money on Super Bowl commercials since 2011, creating a series of notable mini-dramas, beginning with a 2-minute ad starring Eminem. That was followed in 2012 by another rebirth-of-Detroit-themed spot voiced by Clint Eastwood. The next year, Oprah Winfrey voiced a Jeep commercial, and Chrysler bought another two-minute ad for Ram trucks backed by a recording of Paul Harvey’s “God Made a Farmer.”

Last year, the automaker showed not one, but three 30-second spots. One of them pushed the merits of Fiat’s Maserati brand, but the one among the trio that seemed to garner the most attention was the two-minute, Americana cliché-saturated Chrysler commercial starring Bob Dylan.

Whether or not the ads were well-liked – Dylan hawking cars was especially polarizing – they got people talking.

“You really have to do a lot to make the winning ad that everyone talks about around the water cooler, and that’s the intent,” Had said.

Toyota’s “Bold” marketing campaign for its Camry sedan features LaVar Arrington, a former linebacker, and Kurt Warner, a retired quarterback, as good dads of the NFL in one spot, and Amy Purdy, a double-amputee snowboarder, in another. Lexus, the automaker’s luxury division, is scheduled to run a 30-second spot for its NX crossover.

Mercedes-Benz is relying upon an animated tortoise and hare to tout the 2016 Mercedes-AMG GT S sports car, and has enlisted the help of NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice and Playboy bunny Stephanie Branton to deliver an ESPN-style “race update” in another video.

BMW has evoked technological history in a commercial for its high-tech battery-electric i3, harkening back to a time when the Internet was still a relatively unknown phenomenon. To get the message across, the automaker hired Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel, who had professed their ignorance of all things world wide web on an episode of The Today Show in 1994.

Earlier this week, Kia unveiled an extended version of the ad it would air during the Super Bowl: “The Perfect Getaway.” Pierce Brosnan stars as a Bond-like character who sees the Kia Sorrento crossover as a perfect getaway vehicle, while the ad man with whom he’s discussing the idea envisions a more relaxing getaway.

Like Toyota, Nissan’s ad will be dad-themed. The automaker announced Wednesday that it would show a 90-second spot, entitled “With Dad,” during the game. The 14-second teaser released with the announcement didn’t reveal much, but aside from a baby, a dad and a harrowed young mother, there were also racecars shown.

At the end of the day, automakers want to be sure expensive Super Bowl ads are as effective as they are memorable. A bad commercial can do more harm than an advertising touchdown can do good. Krebs said that Autotrader had found that although 16 percent of the people the company surveyed said they would be more likely to buy an automaker’s vehicle if an ad was entertaining, 25% said a dud ad would make them less likely to buy from that automaker in the future.