Disney's Game-Changer: Bret Healey on How Disney's NFL and Champion Collaboration Came Together

Today, at Fanatics Fest 2026, Disney and Champion revealed a major collaboration that pairs NFL teams with iconic Disney characters. For example, the New England Patriots collection features Captain America, while the Dallas Cowboys collection incorporates Woody (my personal favorite is the New York Giants mashup with Wreck-It Ralph). At the big unveiling, I had a chance to chat with Bret Healey (Director of Graphic Design at Disney Consumer Products) about this unique initiative.

Benji Breitbart: Congratulations. This must be quite the moment.

Bret Healey: It really is. You know, I don't say this lightly: it's kind of a dream come true. I've been a sports fan my whole life and I love sports apparel. And to walk in here and it's like a sports store, which I would have dreamed of as a kid, it's a really great moment.

BB: How long has this been in the works?

BH: I'd say probably around a year. Last summer we really kicked off and really got together with the NFL and Champion to kick this off together. It's been great... Everyone was really open and collaborative. We wanted something really special and I think we've done that.

BB: Obviously, you have to keep it authentic to the NFL and authentic to Disney. And it definitely feels like an NFL shirt and also feels like a Disney shirt. How did you manage making sure both of those elements came across?

BH: Yeah, I'm a fan of sports apparel myself. For years, I've gone to the parks and I see people representing their cities and their teams in the parks... And I thought over those years, "We've got to be a part of that." What would it take for me to wear a Disney character of my favorite team, right? I kind of think of it as sacred — it's my team, right?

So we wanted to do this like sort of second-tier story and we call it the draft. We're going to have a draft like the day. And it really was about drafting — starting with the NFL team first, and then which of our characters, whether they are Disney All-Stars or a tertiary character, fits best and authentically with the NFL team.

BB: Were there any sort of conclusions that surprised you when you were going through and sort of lining everybody up?

BH: Well, so you can see there's a couple of like, "of course" — Woody and the Cowboys, right? And I was talking to a Jets fan, he's like, "Oh, I get it, obviously, [Buzz] and the Jets." Something like the Commanders, there's several teams where like, "Oh, that's going to be a tough one, put it on the back burner."

And so it was literally like a 24-hour-a-day thing for myself and my team. I was just driving around and I grew up, you know, during the '80s and like, "Oh, the Hogs." The offensive linemen were the Hogs. I was like, "Hamm! Done deal." And so I think it turned out great.

BB: Another one that was surprising but made sense once I saw it was the Bills and Beast. Any thoughts on how that came together?

BH: Yeah, so the Bills was a unique one and, again, when we talk about our characters, we don't have a Buffalo character. So what are we going to do for the Bills? We started looking at the team, their history, and really right now with their quarterback, he's kind of a dual-threat quarterback. He's a great runner. So, we like the duality of the Beast character.

And second of all, he's a little bit of the Bills logo come to life. That was how I kind of imagined it. He's a little bit aggressive, got that running Bills logo. So I love that tie in as well.

We like to try to have at least a couple of different, if not more, story pieces that connect these teams. It's not just a character, we say we want to tell you a larger story.

BB: This year is a big year for Disney and the NFL. It's the year of the Super Bowl across the whole organization. What's it like being one of the early waves of that collaboration between the NFL and Disney?

BH: It's super exciting and I just think we made such a great collection here and I think it's going to feed into the year of the Super Bowl. It feels great. I'm honored to be able to work with the NFL and Disney and then Champion here today through all this.