In early February 2024, Jason Sudeikis gathered the writers of Ted Lasso in Ojai, California. The show had aired its third season—widely believed to be the finale—a year earlier, but Sudeikis was having second thoughts. “I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if it’s done,’” he recalled. At the Ojai Valley Inn, the team explored whether there was more story to mine. By then, spinoff ideas had been floated: Brett Goldstein and co-creator Joe Kelly developed a pitch about former captain Roy Kent, while two other writers worked on a Keeley Jones concept. Sudeikis himself toyed with a Leslie Higgins cartoon and a Dani Rojas telenovela. But his Notes app was increasingly filled with ideas for the mother ship, and he wanted to gauge everyone’s interest.
“We were just kind of kicking the tires on it—or, as we were saying at the time, checking the viability of the soil,” said Brendan Hunt, a co-creator and Coach Beard actor. They all liked the idea of a women’s soccer team as Coach Lasso’s new purview, teased in the season three finale. “It all seems easy now, but it was hard because it’s not a spinoff,” noted Goldstein. “You’re like, it’s not Frasier; Cheers still exists—it’s more like you’re adding a room to the bar.”
Ted Lasso returns for its fourth season on August 5, featuring AFC Richmond’s all-female team, the Lady Greyhounds, while fan favorites like Ted (Sudeikis), Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), Keeley (Juno Temple), and Roy (Goldstein) are all back. After more than three years without new episodes, it’s impossible to predict how much of the massive fan base will return. The last season, in 2023, was the year’s most-watched streaming original with 283 million viewing hours. In prior seasons, the feel-good show became an emotional lifeline during COVID, winning 13 Emmys, including two best comedy trophies, and a Peabody.
The Seeds of Ted Lasso
The show’s origins trace back to 2013 when NBC Sports acquired U.S. broadcast rights to the English Premier League. Marketing head John Miller initially approached John Oliver to front the promo campaign, but Oliver was tied up with The Daily Show. Chris Pratt also passed. Sudeikis, a former SNL cast member and high school basketball star, was tapped. He recruited buddies Hunt and Kelly, with whom he had done improv and played FIFA. Together, they expanded a fish-out-of-water concept about an American football coach hired to coach a Premier League team—then swiftly fired. The first ad got 3 million views in its first week; half a year later, nearly 22 million watched it on YouTube. They produced a follow-up in 2014 featuring a softer version of Lasso coaching a middle-school girls team. The campaign ended, but Sudeikis couldn’t let the character go.
At the suggestion of his then-partner Olivia Wilde, he invited Kelly and Hunt to his home in early 2015 to flesh out a series. They mapped out much of season one: Lasso would remain a soccer neophyte but a genuinely good guy who never cursed—a departure from Sudeikis’s usual cad roles. NBC Sports wanted in and brought the BBC on board. They met with potential collaborators, including Sharon Horgan, briefly considered for Rebecca. But timing was off: Kelly was launching Detroiters, and Sudeikis was starting a family. The idea sat until Sudeikis enlisted veteran showrunner Bill Lawrence. Lawrence initially reached out about starring in Bad Monkey, but loved the Lasso concept. They pitched to streamers in mid-2018, and only Apple bit. “No matter what we said, people would immediately assume ‘Oh, so it’s a silly, broad, sketchy cartoon show,’” Lawrence later said. “That was not what Jason wanted to do.”
Sudeikis insisted the show be filmed in the U.K. with a British sensibility. “What was in vogue for most comedies at that time was to be really, really fast-paced and really American,” said Hunt. The British Office was their North Star. “We had a lot of pauses, a lot of silent shots of people looking at other people. That pace inherently changes the tone. I’m not sure everyone at Apple or Warner Bros. saw the tone until it was finally in front of them in the editing room.”
Cultural Phenomenon and Behind-the-Scenes Challenges
The show premiered in August 2020, five months into COVID lockdown, rolling out weekly episodes to an audience starved for uplifting content. “We were still in the sourdough bread-baking, cheering-for-essential-workers phase of the pandemic, when even ‘Believe’ was something everyone wanted,” said Channing Dungey, CEO of Warner Bros. TV Group. “The characters and the humanity and just the belief in the underdog resonated at a time when we really needed to heal.” The following Monday, Apple ordered a second season; soon after, a third. By awards season, Lasso was a cultural phenomenon and industry darling.
By season two, the team had to kill a dog. The premiere opened with the team’s greyhound mascot, Earl, slain by an errant penalty kick. The scene set up a deeper dive into mental health issues while reminding audiences it’s still a comedy. Fandom kept growing, including figures like Brené Brown. President Biden and Jill Biden even invited the cast to the White House, where the “Believe” sign hung above the door. To avoid getting “high on our own supply,” Sudeikis insisted on killing the dog—a controversial decision that underscored the show’s refusal to be merely a force of cultural good.
Season two earned 20 Emmy nominations and won best comedy. By season three, Lawrence left to focus on Shrinking and Bad Monkey, leaving Sudeikis to run the show largely on his own. Tension reportedly mounted between the two men, though Sudeikis denied any real fight. “My preference would have been to land the plane with the same people we took off with,” he said. Season three was a slog: production started late and dragged on months longer. “It was death by a thousand paper cuts,” said Hunt, citing COVID delays and script rewrites. Sudeikis worked late into the night, doing final passes on next day’s scripts. The show’s runtime expanded from 30 minutes to nearly an hour, going significantly over budget. “We were budgeted as a 30-minute show when it became much more,” Sudeikis argued. “Some people can look at a whiteboard and know times. I haven’t done enough serialized TV to do that.”
Revival and New Direction
After season three, Sudeikis was done—he told the story he wanted to tell and wanted to go home. But others never accepted it was over. “I cried, I experienced the ending, but I believed there was more,” said Goldstein. Sudeikis ultimately came around, but knew he needed a new narrative focus and a strong showrunner. He brought in Jack Burditt, a veteran of 30 Rock and Modern Family who had sworn off being a showrunner-for-hire. “It’s a terrible job,” Burditt said. But meeting with Sudeikis changed his mind: “He was like, ‘I need someone to put up the walls, and I’ll hang the art.’” Burditt agreed, and his agents told him he’d be an idiot not to.
The studio reassembled the old cast, some nervous about returning. “Nervous about not wanting to do it a disservice,” said Waddingham. Juno Temple added, “Wondering if you’d be good enough.” New players—the Lady Greyhounds—auditioned for acting and soccer skills and attended boot camp. Tanya Reynolds, cast as the prickly assistant coach, requested a follow-up Zoom to confess her lack of athleticism. “I’ve never kicked a ball in my life,” she said. Sudeikis replied, “Well, I think you are.”
Production began January 2025, and early episodes are significantly shorter than season three. According to Burditt, Apple and Warner Bros. prefer even tighter episodes. The first week, they fell behind schedule, prompting emergency Zooms. But Burditt acclimated to Sudeikis’s process, which required more time to tweak scripts. “I know he’s got this reputation, but I honestly feel like Jason’s easy,” Burditt said. The season came in under budget and only a month behind schedule.
Internally, season four is considered stronger than the third. “I think it has some of that season one magic,” said Goldstein. Still, some viewers may be uninterested in a new team. Sudeikis made difficult phone calls to actors not returning. “I called all of them directly because I didn’t want them to hear it on the internet,” he said. Waddingham and Temple have taken on mentor roles for the Lady Greyhounds. “Enjoy your anonymity now,” Waddingham teased. “Just wait till you see your face on a big billboard.”
If all goes well, the writers room will reconvene in late August for a not-yet-ordered season five. Sudeikis has a three-season arc in mind and hopes the audience will be there. “I know I needed this,” he said. “I needed it as much as other people do.”
Source:The Hollywood Reporter News