Jason Sudeikis coming back for Season 4 of ‘Ted Lasso,’ shares the news on ‘New Heights’
Jason Sudeikis shared big news with the Kelce brothers on their “New Heights” podcast Friday: Season 4 of “Ted Lasso” is a go, and Sudeikis is returning, too.
Jason Kelce and Travis Kelce wanted to know the “Ted Lasso” backstory, but also about the rumored new season of the show that ended in 2023.
“That’s what we’re writing. We’re writing season four right now,” Sudeikis told them.
Then he added that “Ted is coaching a women’s team.”
But where?
Travis, who knows Sudeikis through the annual Big Slick charity event, asked if Lasso would return to the United States or still coach in Richmond, England.
Sudeikis was coy. “That’s too many questions,” he said.
The official news of a Season 4 came in a statement Friday that Apple TV+ has renewed its hit Emmy-winning comedy starring the former “Saturday Night Live” star as the mustachioed soccer coach.
The series, co-created by the Shawnee Mission West graduate, ended in May 2023 after three award-winning seasons. Sudeikis starred as an American football coach hired to lead an English soccer team.
No other cast members have been confirmed for now, though previous reports said options have been picked up for Hannah Waddingham (Rebecca Welton), Brett Goldstein (Roy Kent) and Jeremy Swift (Leslie Higgins).
“As we all continue to live in a world where so many factors have conditioned us to ‘look before we leap,’ in season four, the folks at AFC Richmond learn to LEAP BEFORE THEY LOOK, discovering that wherever they land, it’s exactly where they’re meant to be,” Sudeikis said in a statement.
Entertainment news outlets treated the news as something of a shock given the uncertainty of whether coach Lasso had seen his last days.
“Ted Lasso” was a ratings juggernaut, one of the streaming platform’s biggest successes when it debuted in 2020.
The show found its audience quickly, perhaps due to the main character’s quest to spread happiness and kindness at a time when the world was deep in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Ted Lasso” was ultimately nominated for 61 Emmy Awards during its run, winning 13. That included back-to-back wins in the best comedy series category, as well as consecutive wins for Sudeikis.
Season 3 largely wrapped up the show’s storylines, with AFC Richmond rising through the ranks of the Premier League and Ted returning home to Kansas to be with his son.
“If ever there was a show the world needed more of right now, it would be ‘Ted Lasso,’” said Channing Dungey, chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Television Group and WBD US Networks, in a statement.
“We — along with countless fans around the globe — have been rooting for another season, and it is an incredible feeling to be able to say, ‘Yes, it’s happening!’
“We thank our partners at Apple and can’t wait for Jason and the entire ‘Ted Lasso’ dream team to step back onto the pitch and deliver another season of this phenomenal series.”
Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Joe Kelly and Brendan Hunt, who plays Coach Beard, developed the show based on characters they created for an NBC Sports ad campaign. All are executive producers of the show.
For Friday’s “New Heights” episode Sudeikis joined the brothers in Los Angeles, where they are “officially out here for a small amount of time,” Jason Kelce said.
They are likely there to attend the iHeart Radio Music Awards on Monday at the Dolby Theatre in L.A.
Travis is nominated for a new award, “Favorite Surprise Guest,” for when he, Patrick Mahomes and fellow teammate Chris Jones joined Morgan Wallen on stage at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium last summer.
Taylor Swift, who dates Travis, is being recognized for “Tour of the Century” for her Eras Tour that wrapped up in December.
She is also nominated for a host of awards, including Pop Artist of the Year, Artist of the Year and Best Collaboration (“Fortnight” with Post Malone).
She is also nominated in the “Favorite Surprise Guest” category for when she brought Travis on stage at one of her tour shows in London last year, a moment that went viral.
Last weekend, “New Heights” was named Best Sports Podcast at the iHeartPodcast Awards held in Austin, Texas during the SXSW film festival.
On Friday’s episode, Jason Kelce asked Sudeikis if he had ever pitched the idea of Ted Lasso on “Saturday Night Live.” Sudeikis said no.
He said that in the summer of 2013 NBC planned to broadcast Premier League soccer and asked Sudeikis to help with the ad campaign.
NBC had hired the advertising company of “two British guys,” Sudeikis said, “and they had like five different ideas for promos. And one of them was an American football coach coaching soccer.”
The character was originally modeled after a coach Sudeikis played on “SNL,” a mustachioed football coach who was more of a screaming “Bobby Knight type,” Sudeikis said.
Sudeikis suggested the character would be funnier as a “softer version,” which led him to create a voice that “sounded a little bit like Bill Self, sounded a little bit like (former University of Kansas basketball coach) Roy Williams.”
The commercial did well. “Comedy people liked it, soccer people liked it, football people liked it,” Sudeikis said.
The idea of the coach stuck with Sudeikis, Kelly and Hunt. “What else can we do, is there something more ... a movie?” he said.
They sat down to write and in three days they had a pilot script and six TV episodes that just “sat there for two or three years,” Sudeikis said.
In the meantime his writing partners got involved in other projects. He and his ex-partner, actress Olivia Wilde, had two children.
Then Lawrence, who created the hit comedy “Scrubs,” approached him about a project that “didn’t quite hit it off,” Sudeikis said.
But Lawrence told him “if you have any other ideas” and Sudeikis, rather sheepishly, handed him the “Ted Lasso” stuff.
“Did you think it was something?” Jason asked Sudeikis.
“No,” he said. “I knew it was fun ... I knew it was something that we had fun doing ... and I was giving it to a guy who could ... it was like a stalled car. ‘Do you have gas for this tank?’ And he certainly did.
“And he read it on the flight back and he was like ‘Oh, there’s definitely something there.’”
Lawrence went on to become a co-creator of “Ted Lasso.” He said last year, during the excited buzz over a possible Season 4, that the show’s future ultimately depended on Sudeikis.
This story was originally published March 14, 2025 at 12:55 PM.
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