Puppy Bowl 2025 has the biggest roster size ever as Team Ruff and Team Fluff face off in ‘the cutest competition of the year’

Puppy Bowl XXI is bringing canine cuteness to Super Bowl Sunday, pitting Team Ruff against Team Fluff. This year, 142 puppies from 80 shelters across 40 states — and two countries — will compete for the coveted “Lombarky” trophy (a playful nod to the Super Bowl’s Vince Lombardi trophy) and which player will nab MVP — Most Valuable Pup.

“[It’s our] biggest roster size ever, which is a lot to manage,” Puppy Bowl referee Dan Schachner told Yahoo Entertainment. “But we’re ready.”

While “the cutest competition of the year” lets the pups out at 2 p.m. ET, a kickoff special that airs an hour before will give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at which pups are chosen to play. The special will focus on the Puppy Combine, a skills test, and a “puppy draft” of the final 10 players competing in the Puppy Bowl.

“Humans have a three-cone drill. We have a three-bone drill,” Schachner said. “We have some things that humans don’t have, like a ball pit, belly rub scratching contest. We’re the ones scratching.”

There will also be ramps and tire tunnels, he said.

“It’s going to be really fun and cute,” added the ref, who’s now in his 14th year with the program.

As far as not getting too distracted by all the on-field cuteness, Schachner said it helps that he’s “much higher and taller” than the pups.

“If the dogs were at my level, it would be really hard,” he said. “I can just sort of look down at the action and take it all in and figure out what the infractions are and what they aren’t. I pick my battles.”

At the same time, the Puppy Bowl team is going to “show these dogs in their best light and give their shelters a little bit of love.”

This pet-friendly take on the Super Bowl, now in its 21st iteration, serves as a call-to-adoption for rescue pets — not only the ones who are going “from the shelter to stardom” on game day but also pets in shelters across the country.

“Don’t shop for a dog. Adopt a dog,” Schachner said. “The overpopulation issue in this country continues. There’s still hundreds of thousands of dogs sitting in shelters year after year. Some of them meet a very sad fate if the shelters can’t house them.”

The ref also cited the California wildfires as a difficult time for shelter pets.

“Space is certainly a huge issue,” he explained. “Shelters literally had to take what they had of those dogs and move them off site, further away from L.A., in order to make room for these displaced animals.”

Schachner himself has fostered more than 40 dogs. In 2024, he adopted Whistle, a poodle mix who also served as an assistant referee during that year’s Puppy Bowl.

“She was terrible,” he joked. “All she wanted to do was play with the other dogs on the field.”

The referee will be joined on the field with the likes of Team Ruff’s Saquon Barky (named after Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley) and Team Fluff’s Paws Allen (named after Buffalo Bills quarterback and NFL MVP Josh Allen).

As for who Schachner is rooting for in Super Bowl LIX, when the Philadelphia Eagles face off against the Kansas City Chiefs, he’s keeping it in the animal kingdom.

“We’re Animal Planet, right? We’re going to vote and root for any team that is repping an animal,” he said. “We would have loved the [Detroit] Lions to have made it, but instead, we’ve got the Eagles, and that’s OK.”

As for Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who’s been coy about whether he’ll pop the question to superstar girlfriend Taylor Swift at the game — Schachner said that might be “a pretty cool thing if he ran up to the skybox where Taylor is.”

“It’d be cool as a postgame moment if they win,” he said.

“I wouldn’t want to play a football game if I knew if I had a ring in my pocket, waiting to pop the question,” he added. “I’d feel extra nervous.”

Puppy Bowl XXI will be simulcast across Animal Planet, Discovery, TBS, truTV, Max and Discovery+ on Feb. 9 at 2 p.m. ET.