Darth Vader Drafted by the Raiders: Inside the Disney and Champion NFL Collection

By entgrove · July 17, 2026

Disney, the NFL, Champion, and Fanatics unveiled the Disney | Champion NFL Collection at Fanatics Fest NYC, pairing eight teams with characters including Darth Vader, Woody, and Captain America. The full 32-team lineup drops in August ahead of the 2026 season.

Disney, the NFL, Champion, and Fanatics unveiled the Disney | Champion NFL Collection at Fanatics Fest NYC, pairing eight teams with characters from Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, and the Avengers. The reveal ran as a live Disney Fan Draft on stage, and the remaining 24 teams are still on the board.

The first eight picks off the board

The Disney Fan Draft put eight team and character pairings on the board, each with a stated reason rather than a random match. Disney Consumer Products framed every pick around a piece of team identity: a nickname, a logo era, a defensive unit, or a city trait.

• Buffalo Bills and Disney's Beast, chosen for raw strength paired with loyalty.
• Dallas Cowboys and Disney and Pixar's Woody, rooted in classic cowboy iconography.
• Las Vegas Raiders and Star Wars' Darth Vader, matched on legacy power and presence.
• New England Patriots and the Avengers' Captain America, a modern take on heritage and leadership.
• New York Giants and Disney's Wreck-It Ralph, big and unstoppable with a soft center.
• New York Jets and Disney and Pixar's Buzz Lightyear, anchored in the team's aviation roots.
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Disney's Captain Hook, pirate legacy with attitude.
• Washington Commanders and Disney and Pixar's Hamm, a nod to "The Hogs."

The designer who built the draft board

Bret Healey, Director of Graphic Design at Disney Consumer Products, led the pairings and the collection aesthetic. He describes himself first as a sports fan, not a designer with a sports assignment. "First and foremost, I'm a sports junkie," Healey said.

Healey grew up around the sport. His father played football through college, and his own fandom started with baseball around age nine before football took over. He collects fan apparel, and he says the appeal was never the box score.

"It's the jerseys, the city identities, the nicknames, mascots, stadiums, the fan signs in the stands, the niche pieces of team history and moments that your family and friends never forget. That's the stuff I truly love. The culture around the teams." Bret Healey, Disney Consumer Products

The idea came from walking through Disney Parks and noticing how many guests were wearing either Disney gear or their team's colors, rarely both. Healey started asking what it would take for him, as a fan, to wear a Disney product tied to his own team.

Sports first was the rule

The design brief was not to place a character on a jersey. Healey's team looked at franchise history, city identity, team colors, fan traditions, nicknames, and famous eras before locking any pairing, with a rule against repeating a character across the 32 teams. The team compared the process to moving the ball against the league's best defense.

Some pairings read instantly. Others take a second, which Healey pushed for on purpose. "My favorite ones are the picks that make you pause for a second," he said. "Then it clicks, and you think, okay, I see what they did there. That little moment of recognition is the fun part."

The details built for fans who know their team

Several designs reward franchise knowledge. Woody looks like an obvious Cowboys pick until you see the design that poses him after the original Cowboys logo, the one that predates the star most fans picture now.

Wreck-It Ralph and the Giants comes from the "Big Blue Wrecking Crew" defenses of the 1980s rather than from Ralph's size alone. The Washington pick arrived the same way, through a piece of fan shorthand.

"After a long internal search for a match to the Commanders, I was driving around town and 'The Hogs!' popped into my head. Once that happened, it had to be Hamm," Healey said. "I like the humor aspect, it's a little unexpected, and a perfect example of the tone we want to set with this collection."

The picks are supposed to start arguments

Healey expects pushback, and the draft format was built for it. "If nobody argues about the picks, is it even a legitimate draft?" he said. "Sports fans debate everything rigorously. That's part of the fun. It keeps us all connected with each other when the games aren't on."

Beast and the Bills lands quickly. Buzz Lightyear and the Jets, or Vader and the Raiders, may need a beat. That pause is the point. "Sports can be very serious, but being a fan should still be fun at its root," Healey said. "If these pieces make people smile, debate, discover details or tell a story about their team, then they're doing exactly what they're supposed to do."

Why the reveal happened at Fanatics Fest

Fanatics Fest NYC gathers athletes, collectors, creators, and superfans in one building, which made it a natural stage for a collection aimed at modern sports fandom. The on-stage Disney Fan Draft put the first picks on the board, and the Disney | Champion Fan Zone let attendees shop the first drop, take photos, and meet Disney characters on the floor.

The launch also sits inside Disney and ESPN's "Year of the Super Bowl," the yearlong build toward ESPN's first Super Bowl production in February.

What this means for fans

Only a quarter of the league has been revealed, so 24 teams are still unassigned, and Disney has said no character repeats. Fans can join a waitlist for updates on their own team, and the full collection reaches Fanatics.com, NFLShop.com, DisneyStore.com, and select Lids stores in August. If your team is still on the board, the guessing game runs until then.