Puppy Bowl 2025: History, How It Works, & Who Won

Written by David Sisson

Edited by Jimmy Eastman

On Sunday, February 9th, a tradition unlike any other, a global spectacle to take the world by storm, aired on the Discovery Channel, and families across the nation gathered at their living rooms to behold the 2025 Puppy Bowl.

The Puppy Bowl began as a joke counter-program to the Super Bowl in 2005, which also served as a sort of advertisement for adoption centers and animal rescues. Puppies from these animal rescues and shelters would be selected at random to roam the field and bring toys to one of the end zones for about two and a half hours, with a semi-choreographed halftime show consisting of performances by various kittens brought onto the field with scratching posts and other toys for entertainment, meant to mock/imitate the Super Bowl halftime performances by various artists each year. Up until 2015, there were no actual two named teams, so Puppies would compete individually against each other. 

(A puppy from Team Ruff on defense against Team Fluff) 

Every year since 2015, a field of around a hundred or more puppies from adoption centers across the United States are split into two teams: Ruff and Fluff. Team Ruff currently has five victories since the creation of the team, and Team Fluff now has seven due to their win in the most recent Puppy Bowl, in which they won by a last-second touchdown by Paws Allen for a score of 68-66 to obtain the coveted Lombarky Trophy. 

After the game, there are 3 separate awards given out to the players for their performances and for the winner of a “Pupularity” contest, these three awards are called: The Underdog Award, The Most Valuable Puppy Award, and the Pupularity Contest Winner. This year the winners (in order) were Mercury, a Maremma Sheepdog, Foxtrot, a Border Collie Mix, and Dee-Bone Samuel, a Poodle Mix.