Posted in: Max, TV | Tagged: puppy bowl

Puppy Bowl XXII Draws 15.3 Million Viewers: 20% Jump From Last Year

With the kind of numbers TPUSA and Kid Rock could only dream of, Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl XXII pulled in 15.3 million viewers on Sunday.

Published Wed, 11 Feb 2026 15:07:07 -0600

by Ray Flook

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After getting some ratings intel on Super Bowl LX, the Super Bowl LX Apple Music Halftime Show with Bad Bunny, and Turning Point USA's Kid Rock-headlining pre-taped event, the numbers are in for Puppy Bowl XXII – and Kid Rock should be feeling mighty jealous at this point (more on that below). We're expecting him to go back on FOX "News" and criticize the canine competition for using "foreign" dogs and call out the pups for not speaking English. That's because the annual event locked down 15.3 million viewers across Animal Planet, Discovery, TBS, truTV, HBO Max, and Discovery+ on Sunday, February 8th, an increase of 20% from 2025 and the best numbers since 2018.

"This year's Puppy Bowl delivered its strongest performance in nearly a decade, and its success across linear and streaming highlights our unique ability to unite audiences around content that feels good and does good," shared Joseph Boyle, head of content for Discovery Channel. "We're grateful to bring viewers so much joy and are deeply proud of the purpose at the heart of this event." Now, here's a look back at the ratings info we learned on Tuesday:

Super Bowl LX: This year's one-sided championship game averaged 124.9 million viewers on Sunday night, a slight decrease from last year's game, which averaged 127.7 million viewers. Viewership peaked during the second quarter, averaging 137.8 million viewers, making it the highest peak in U.S. TV history. Nielsen's numbers measured the live+same day viewing figures from across NBC, Peacock, Telemundo, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL+, with this past weekend's game now ranked as the second-most-watched program in U.S. TV history (behind last year's Super Bowl LIX). The figure represents the average number of people who were tuned in at any given moment during the game, with the totals fluctuating during the telecasts.

Bad Bunny/Super Bowl LX Halftime Show: Bad Bunny averaged 128.2 million viewers, down from Kendrick Lamar's 133.5 million viewers during Super Bowl LIX. Telemundo averaged 3.3 million viewers, marking the most-watched Super Bowl in U.S. Spanish-language history. In addition, the halftime show averaged 128.2 million viewers in the United States from 8:15-8:30 p.m. ET. Telemundo's audience peaked during the halftime show, averaging 4.8 million viewers, making it also the most-watched Super Bowl halftime in Spanish-language history. In terms of social media, NBCUniversal reports that views of the halftime show set a record, reaching 4 billion in the first 24 hours (an increase of 134% from last year), and that 55% of all NFL social media views came from international markets. NBCU says global viewership for the halftime show will be made available next week.

Turning Point USA: In comparison, and despite two months to prepare and claims that it would hurt the NFL, NBC, and Bad Bunny's halftime efforts, Turning Point USA's Kid Rock-fronted pre-recorded effort did anything but. Compared to the Super Bowl Halftime Show's 124.9 million average, TPUSA's YouTube livestream peaked at just 6.1 million viewers during the show, and has now reached 21 million views (compared to Bad Bunny's 57 million YouTube views). Now you understand why Kid Rock has as much reason to be pissed at dozens of adorable pups as he does at one smooth bunny.

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