Celebrity Name: Kyle Kuzma and Winnie Harlow
Brand Name: Champion
Deal Type: Brand ambassador / Campaign feature
Announced: February 9, 2026
Impact: Elevates Champion’s cultural storytelling strategy while strengthening Kuzma’s positioning as a style-forward athlete and multi-category entrepreneur in fashion, grooming, and sports-tech.
- Kyle Kuzma kicks off his new year by landing the lead role in Champion’s Spring/Summer 2026 “Champions for Champion” campaign.
- Kuzma is joined by his fiancée, supermodel Winnie Harlow, making this a real-life couple moment front-and-center in a major brand campaign.
- The SS26 lineup also features NFL QB Jaxson Dart, Olympic gold medalist surfer Caroline Marks, Brazilian actress Bella Campos, and returning faces The Kid LAROI and Romeo Beckham.
- The full SS26 Champion collection has been available at Target and select global retailers since February 15, 2026.
The Milwaukee Bucks forward, Kyle Kuzma, has landed his first brand deal of the year, starring in Champion’s Spring/Summer 2026 campaign as the latest face of the brand’s growing “Champions for Champion” initiative.
Announced by Authentic Brands Group on February 9, 2026, the campaign centers on “voices that define modern greatness through influence, purpose, and presence.”
Kuzma joins a cross-culture lineup that includes his real-life fiancée and supermodel Winnie Harlow, New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart, Olympic gold medalist surfer Caroline Marks, and Brazilian actress Bella Campos, alongside returning campaign faces The Kid LAROI and Romeo Beckham.
The SS26 collection went live at Target and select retailers worldwide on February 15. It features Champion’s signature “Iconic Essentials”: fleece hoodies, crewnecks, joggers, and puddle pants, plus a fashion-forward sports capsule including polos, skorts, and tennis-inspired pieces.
For Kuzma, the deal fits his off-court brand like a glove. The 30-year-old is a founder, investor, modern art collector, and one of the NBA’s most style-forward players, whose pregame tunnel fits regularly go viral.
He runs the Kyle Kuzma Foundation, which supports single mothers and their children, and in September 2025, he invested in men’s skincare brand Margin.
His growing endorsement portfolio mirrors wider trends in athlete branding, similar to moves by veterans like Chris Paul, who was recently named brand ambassador for AT&T.
Champion, owned by Authentic Brands Group, has been steadily growing this platform since its mid-2025 launch, which featured names like Tom Aspinall and Katie Taylor.
With Kuzma and Harlow now front-and-center as an authentic real-life couple, Champion is leaning hard into the intersection of sport, culture, and personal story, and it’s a smart play.
The Kuzma x Champion deal tells a bigger story than just a jersey swap. Champion, under Authentic Brands Group’s stewardship, is executing a deliberate cultural strategy, pairing athletes with lifestyle influence rather than just sport performance metrics.
Kuzma isn’t just an NBA player here; he’s a fashion icon, a philanthropist, and half of a high-profile celebrity couple. That’s layered brand equity, and Champion knows it.
What also stands out is the couple dynamic. Having Kuzma and Harlow feature together isn’t accidental, it humanizes the campaign and generates organic social buzz that no media spend can fully replicate.
For Kuzma, who is already investing in grooming brands and advising tech and sports startups, this campaign reinforces his evolution into a full-fledged lifestyle entrepreneur.
Does seeing Kuzma in a Champion campaign make you view the brand as more fashion-forward or more performance-focused? Which crossover in the cast (athlete, musician, model, actor) makes the campaign most interesting to you personally?
