Super Bowl advertisements have a long history of attracting political controversies, and this year is no different.

While the match-up between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants will be country’s focus on Sunday, the high-priced ads during the game will come in a close second. And in an election year, the odds are that there will be some ads that stir up political controversy.

{mosads}The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday denied a request from anti-abortion rights activist Randall Terry to force a Chicago television station to run his ad during Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Terry, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president to attract attention to the anti-abortion cause, filed a complaint with the FCC after WMAQ Chicago, an NBC affiliate, refused to run his ad.

Jason Rose, a public relations expert in Arizona and partner of the firm Rose, Moser and Allyn, said the sheer size of the Super Bowl audience drives companies to take a risk in advertising.

“If every advertiser has spots that look like Tide commercials, they’re going to fall flat and they’re not going to make their mark,” he said, adding that a bit of provocativeness can “cut through the clutter.”

President Obama didn’t advertise during the Super Bowl in his 2008 run for the White House. But his campaign benefitted from a devastating ad that remixed one of the most famous Super Bowl ads ever.

Adapting the “1984” Apple ad that premiered during the Super Bowl 28 years ago, an Obama fan’s video showed a blond female athlete throwing a sledgehammer at a huge screen of then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) talking to people who appear brainwashed.

The ad, which only appeared on the Internet, ended with this message: “On Jan. 14, the Democratic primary will begin. And you’ll see why 2008 won’t be like 1984.

Over the last decade, there have been a handful of ads that have prompted outrage from politicians and political groups. A list of them follows. 

Watch these Super Bowl ads: 
Pepsi Max |Focus on the Family
Sales Genie | Snickers | MoveOn

Brendan Sasso contributed to this story.

2011: Pepsi Max. On the House floor after the Super Bowl, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) admonished the iconic soft drink maker for what she called a “demeaning” ad. In it, a black couple is enjoying a day in the park, when a white female jogger sits next to the man and smiles at him. The black female throws her Pepsi Max at her boyfriend, he ducks and it hits the jogger.

At the time, Jackson-Lee said the ad “was insulting to women of all colors.” She also criticized Pepsi for running such an ad during African-American history month.

John Carroll, a media analyst and professor of mass communication at Boston University, said there are “two major elements” that make up a Super Bowl ad:  Hitting on women and getting hit by objects.

“This ad, brilliantly in its own way, combines both of these elements,” he said. Advertisers, however, get lost when they “get caught up in their own cleverness.”

And there’s a major rule to abide by in creating a Super Bowl ad, he added: “If people can’t understand what your ad is trying to communicate without sound, then it’s a bad ad.”

Watch these Super Bowl ads: 
Pepsi Max |Focus on the Family
Sales Genie | Snickers | MoveOn

2010: Focus on the Family. The mother of then-college football star and now Denver Bronco Tim Tebow stands against a plain white backdrop and talks about her difficult pregnancy with “Timmy,” almost losing him several times. Although the ad was paid for by for the group that opposes abortion rights, there was no explicit anti-abortion message contained in the ad, as was expected before it aired.

Carroll said that “pro-choice forces got sucked into a conversation about something that never actually happened,” adding, “Focus on the Family got the benefit of all this publicity ahead of time, and when it aired, it took the air out of the room.”

Watch these Super Bowl ads: 
Pepsi Max |Focus on the Family
Sales Genie | Snickers | MoveOn

2008: Sales Genie. The company that sells business and consumer sales leads showed animated ads that featured an Indian sales representative with seven kids and pandas speaking with over-the-top Asian accents.  

The political response was tepid, eliciting only a peep from OCA, an Asian-Pacific Americans advocacy group, saying that they found the spots “racist” and “offensive.”

Watch these Super Bowl ads: 
Pepsi Max |Focus on the Family
Sales Genie | Snickers | MoveOn

2007: Snickers. Two mechanics are working under the hood of a car while one eats a Snickers bar. The other man begins chomping on the other end, until the two have a brief Lady and the Tramp-style lip lock. “Quick! Do something manly!” one exclaims, and they each pull out a clump of their own chest hair. The candy company also included “alternate” endings, some of which were more violent. 

Although the company claims they were trying to be funny and not controversial, gay rights organizations protested that it was “unacceptable” and promoted negative feelings toward homosexuals.

Watch these Super Bowl ads: 
Pepsi Max |Focus on the Family
Sales Genie | Snickers | MoveOn

2004: MoveOn.org. The ad by the liberal political group wanted to display the “bad economic policies of President George W. Bush” but was rejected by CBS because of a policy not to air political advertisements during the big game.

Carroll said, “Sometimes it’s good business to get your ad rejected.” He added, “You get these small activist groups, begging for someone to sue them so they can get into the spotlight.”

Also, publicity like that only costs the amount of making the commercial because the organization does not even end up paying for airtime, he said.

This year, the average price for a commercial slot during the national broadcast of the game rose 17 percent from 2011 — to $3.5 million.

Watch these Super Bowl ads: 
Pepsi Max |Focus on the Family
Sales Genie | Snickers | MoveOn