Disney+ is putting Lionel Messi's name on a kids' franchise a full year before anyone can stream it.
The first piece of this plan arrived at San Diego Comic-Con Málaga in Spain, the convention's official European edition.
The teaser for "Messi and the Giants" played for more than 3,000 fans in Hall M.
The timing is the part worth watching here.
Messi retired from the Argentina national team in August, and his Más+ hydration drink was pulled from shelves seven months before that.
The animated series puts his name inside character and entertainment licensing, a $161.8 billion category that sells even after an athlete stops playing.
Joining the show's debut were several people involved in its making, including:
- Executive producers Lacey Stanton and Bryan Korn of Sony Pictures Television
- Director Dan Creteur of Atlantis Studios
- Sergi Reitg of Sony Music Vision
Messi is credited as an executive producer alongside Jorge Messi Pérez, a role that follows Disney+'s December 2024 announcement of the series.
Pérez, Messi's father and longtime manager, died in August 2026, two weeks before the retirement post.
Messi's team is running a three-year release calendar.
An announcement in December 2024, a teaser in October 2026, and a premiere in summer 2027 give the title three separate news cycles.
Celebrity brand partnerships rarely get this much runway, and three years of news teaches the audience the title itself before an episode airs.
Leo Plays Without Cheat Codes
The series follows Leo, a 12-year-old who becomes trapped in an alternate reality ruled by giants.
To get home, he has to compete in high-stakes, soccer-like battles using powerful orbs, defeat legendary giants, and restore the fractured realms of Iko.
These battles come with a catch. Everyone else in this world can use cheat-code powers to supercharge their game, but Leo can't.
He relies on skill, teamwork, and determination instead, which is why Disney positions the series as an underdog adventure about courage and perseverance.
The teaser backs this story with "Vamos, Vamos, Vamos," an original theme song from Argentinian artist Luck Ra, with Milo Burgess-Webb voicing Leo.
All of it leads to a global Disney+ premiere in Summer 2027, with the series also airing on Disney Channel in the U.S.
Disney built the first look around Argentinian talent and showed it in Spain, where Messi played for 17 years.
A product launch travels further when the debut audience already has a personal reason to share it.
Sports Licensing Climbs 8.5% to $44.4 Billion
"Messi and the Giants" arrives at the right time, when the two categories it touches are showing signs of growth.
Licensing International reported that global sales of licensed merchandise and services reached $389.8 billion in 2025, up 5.45%.
Sports is the fastest-growing property type of the year, rising 8.5% to $44.4 billion and taking an 11.4% share of the market.
Meanwhile, character and entertainment stayed the largest category, up 8% to $161.8 billion.
Streaming tells the same story on the kids' side, where Disney+ has the biggest title in the category.
Nielsen put "Bluey" at 22.8 billion U.S. viewing minutes in the first half of 2026, second only to "Stranger Things."
"Messi and the Giants" sits where these two worlds overlap.
Sports and character licensing are growing at nearly the same rate, so a title that counts as both gets two sets of buyers at every renewal.
Brands working the same overlap can borrow three moves from this launch:
- Stage the news in separate beats: Space the announcement, the first look, and the premiere far enough apart that each one earns its own coverage window.
- Credit the music partners: A named artist and label give the project a release that circulates on playlists on its own schedule.
- Match the venue to the fandom: Debuting in front of the audience most invested in the talent puts the first assets with the people who will share them.
A star's name opens the door, and a hero with his own story keeps families watching.
Franchise owners should settle early on which of the two anchors the brand strategy, since merchandise and renewals price off this answer.
Our Take: Will Messi the Cartoon Outlast Messi the Player?
The most valuable thing that Messi owns right now is a cartoon that nobody can watch until 2027.
We still think that it'll outlast the player, and the margin is wider than it sounds.
He left the Argentina national team but still has an Inter Miami deal through 2028.
So a kid who is eight at the premiere will still know him from clips.
His Más+ drink showed the limit of the name on its own, dead in 18 months with Mark Anthony's distribution behind it.
Nike's "Jumpman" is the better parallel, since it still sells to buyers who have never watched Michael Jordan play a minute.
The risk sits in the title, because kids who love Leo may never register that the Messi in front of his name is a real person.
Keeping these two names attached is the real decade-long job for his commercial team.
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