The beloved Apple TV+ series that taught us all about the importance of being goldfish looks closer than ever to getting its long-rumored and long-hoped for Season 4. That’s right, Ted Lasso fans — the rumor mill has cranked back up again, after months of tantalizing clues being dropped here and there. This time, the excitement is due to the fact that Warner Bros. Television has reportedly secured the options on three OG Ted Lasso cast members: Hannah Waddingham (AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Walton), Brett Goldstein (AFC Richmond captain/coach Roy Kent), and Jeremy Swift (AFC Richmond Director of Football Operations Leslie Higgins).
It’s not anything that’s been officially announced yet, but it would seem that nailing down those options is a crucial first step in the requisite locking down of everyone who would be involved in a fourth season. According to our sister publication Variety, it’s also believed that Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis himself is going to be involved in Season 4 in an executive producer capacity — which, I should add, lines up with many people’s belief that a new season would work best if focused on some of the non-Ted characters, like Rebecca and Keeley.
No one is commenting on anything at this point (big surprise!), but there’s also a rumor that a writers’ room is in the works with a hoped-for Season 4 production start date of sometime early next year. “After securing (Waddingham, Goldstein, and Swift), the studio is expected to start reaching out to Ted Lasso cast members with SAG-AFTRA contracts whose options had expired,” Deadline adds.
Needless to say, this is incredibly exciting news for Apple TV+ subscribers and, of course, for Ted Lasso fans. For a bit of the backstory in how the show came about in the first place, here’s a portion of a conversation I had back in 2020 with Ted Lasso co-creator Bill Lawrence: “Look, I was chasing Jason … Chasin’ Jason, that’s a good name for a show! … and what an actor geared for the modern streaming era. He’s so affable and simultaneously a leading man comedically, which is so hard to find in an actor or actress. And when I ran into him, our shorthand was about sports. We both love basketball, we both loves sports movies and lot of other stuff.
“And he told me, ‘Just so you know, I’m more recognized overseas as Ted Lasso than for any movie or TV show I’ve ever done.’ And I was like, ‘Whoa.'”
Sudeikis then raised the idea of turning the character into something that would be part of an actual series. Continues Lawrence: “I was initially skeptical, because I’d seen the video, the promotional shorts, and they’re super funny. But they’re sketch-funny. It’s kind of a one-joke premise.
“Jason turned it into a challenge. He was like, ‘I want to run this past you, because I see a way that this guy could be slightly different and more of a three-dimensional character, with more emotional pathos. So, maybe we could turn this not only into a fully rounded show but our own version of a sports movie. And that had me hooked.”
It didn’t take long at all, of course, for millions of other people to be hooked, as well.
