US Trends

how many people watched the puppy bowl

About 12.8 million people watched the most recent Puppy Bowl (Puppy Bowl XXI in 2025) across TV and streaming platforms.

Quick Scoop

What the numbers look like

  • Puppy Bowl XXI (2025) reached an average audience of about 12.8 million viewers across Animal Planet, Discovery, TBS, truTV, Max, and Discovery+.
  • That was up slightly from the 2024 Puppy Bowl, which drew around 12.6 million viewers on linear and streaming combined.
  • The 2025 broadcast was reported as the highest‑rated Puppy Bowl ever on Discovery, TBS, and truTV, and Animal Planet’s best Puppy Bowl in about four years.

Why it’s a trending TV event

  • The Puppy Bowl has grown from a quirky Super Bowl counter‑program into a reliable multi‑million‑viewer event each year, helped by cross‑platform airing and streaming availability.
  • Networks highlight it as the top non‑sports cable telecast of Super Bowl Sunday in key demographics, especially adults 25–54.

Context over time

  • In recent years, total audiences have clustered in the low‑teens millions when you combine all networks and streaming platforms, with modest year‑to‑year growth.
  • Earlier editions were smaller, but as distribution widened and the “adopt, don’t shop” angle became a bigger part of the promotion, viewership climbed into the multi‑million range and stayed there.

Mini FAQ

Q: Is that 12.8 million for one channel or everything combined?
It’s a combined figure across all participating cable channels plus major streaming platforms (Max and Discovery+ among them).

Q: Was 2025 a record year?
Yes, it was cited as the most‑watched Puppy Bowl ever on several Warner Bros. Discovery networks and the strongest for Animal Planet since 2021.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.