Although Ted Lasso appears to have ended after its third season, the series remains a fan favorite that helped put Apple TV+ on the map. Fans of the show embraced Jason Sudeikis’ title character and the show that he co-developed with Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt, and Joe Kelly.
Although Sudeikis had previously indicated that the show would end after three seasons, there’s still hope that Ted Lasso season 4 could happen at some point even though Ted himself has left AFC Richmond behind. And it’s best to never say never in the streaming age. If Frasier can get a revival 20 years after it finished, then hope is never lost for more episodes of Ted Lasso. Perhaps we just need to “believe.”
Will there be a season 4 of Ted Lasso?
Maybe. Don’t get too excited just yet, but The Hollywood Reporter has broken the story that three Ted Lasso cast members have had their options picked up for a potential fourth season. Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein, and Jeremy Swift were asked to reprise their roles as Rebecca Walton, Roy Kent, and Leslie Higgins, respectively.
This is the biggest sign yet that Ted Lasso season 4 may really be happening, but these actors are the only ones currently under contract. If anyone else is going to return, they will need to make a new deal with Warner Bros. TV and Apple TV+.
Are there still talks about Ted Lasso’s future?
Although Ted Lasso came to a conclusion in May 2023, enthusiasm about the show’s future isn’t gone at Warner Bros. TV, the production studio behind the hit series. During a recent interview with Variety, Warner Bros. TV Group Chairman Channing Dungey acknowledged that the show’s story could continue, and that Apple TV+ is game for more. But nothing is certain at the moment.
“I mean, you watched the finale, there’s a little bit of a door that could be kicked back open if need be,” said Dungey. “I wouldn’t put the period on the end of that sentence just yet. There is still a lot of love for Ted Lasso. And I think that there still is a lot of enthusiasm on the part of Apple for Ted Lasso. Should the opportunity arise, we’d be excited to jump back into making more … There are always conversations that are ongoing, just nothing that’s official.”
The co-creator of Ted Lasso speaks about the show’s future
Sudeikis co-created Ted Lasso with Bill Lawrence, who was one of the primary creative voices behind the show. And during an interview with Collider, Lawrence is deferring to Sudeikis about whether the show will continue.
“Whatever Jason feels like doing and whatever his decision is, we’re all down with it,” Lawrence said. “Not only is he the star, he’s the head writer, and he’s also the dude whose life just has to be completely overhauled and moved to a foreign country with young children.”
“It’s a big deal,” Sudeikis added. “So, as a fan, if someone’s like, ‘Oh, it’s gonna happen again,’ I’ll go nuts. As a partner, I’m down for whatever he wants to do.”
Warner Bros. is still hoping for more Ted Lasso
Dungey provided the most recent update regarding where things stand with Ted Lasso season 4 or any potential spinoff series at the Banff World Media Festival in June 2024. Via Deadline, Dungey reiterated that conversations about Ted Lasso returning for a new season or spawning a new show are ongoing, but nothing has been definitively set yet. She is hopeful that the franchise can continue, and noted that Apple TV+ would very much like to revisit the show as well.
“We’ve had conversations about all of the above,” Dungey said. “I think Jason Sudeikis is open to the idea, but I think he wants to have the right idea, which I appreciate. We at Warner Bros appreciate, Apple appreciates, because it’s the sort of thing where you don’t want to go do more, just for the sake of more. You want to go do more because you actually have something to say, you have a story that you want to tell. We’ll see what happens.”
Dungey updated where things stood as of October 2024, and it doesn’t sound like too much has changed. During an interview with Variety, Dungey said “We are in conversations about season four, and they are very exciting conversations, but it’s still early days. We had always been clear that we there wasn’t going to be more Ted Lasso if Jason [Sudeikis] and team weren’t feeling excited about it, and I can tell you firsthand that he’s in a place where he’s feeling really excited and feels good about it.”
So for now, no news is good news, and Sudeikis is at least “excited” at the possibility of returning to the show.
Does the Ted Lasso Blu-ray release mean the show can’t return?
There have been some fans online who freaked out a bit about the upcoming release of Ted Lasso on Blu-ray because it was initially listed on Amazon as Ted Lasso: The Complete Series. The current branding has it as Ted Lasso: The Richmond Way, which seems to leave the door open slightly for a potential continuation.
But even if this Blu-ray was listed as “the complete series,” Ted Lasso wouldn’t be the first show to get a comeback after its conclusion. Futurama, for example, had a complete series Blu-ray set after the show’s conclusion in 2013 before it was revived by Hulu in 2023. Getting the cast of Ted Lasso back together may be more difficult, but it’s not impossible. Arrested Development managed to get two additional seasons on Netflix even with an in-demand cast. Anything is possible, but no one promised anything beyond the third season either.
Could a Ted Lasso spinoff work without the original cast?
There have been some suggestions about potential Ted Lasso spinoffs. But Juno Temple, who played Keeley Jones on the series, expressed her skepticism for doing a spinoff during an interview with Variety in January 2024.
“Doing a spinoff, I feel nervous to do anything without it being the whole team, because we were such a team,” said Temple. “But that being said, it is imperative that I find something to do with Hannah [Waddingham] again at some point, because I love that woman profoundly.”
Temple also shared her feelings about leaving Keeley behind her now that Ted Lasso is over.
“I’m actually quite grateful for the fact that I didn’t have a long window of goodbye with Keeley — because I’m obviously going to miss her,” admitted Temple. “She was a really happy person to play, even though she had her complicated moments and went through a lot, too. She’s somebody who wants everybody to feel the best they can that day. That was a very precious character to have gotten to play for three years.”
Does the cast of Ted Lasso want to return for more stories?
Almost everyone in the Ted Lasso cast appears to be willing to entertain the notion of a comeback at some point. In November 2023, Nick Mohammed shared a post commemorating the anniversary of Ted Lasso‘s final day of production by pretending to drop yet another spoiler.
One year to the day since #TedLasso wrapped. And one year to the day that I accidentally posted this spoiler of Nate in AFC Richmond kit! Promise it won’t happen again on season 4- now wait pic.twitter.com/BR61TTUVrV
— Nick Mohammed (@nickmohammed) November 17, 2023
Does Jason Sudeikis still want to play Ted Lasso?
As the co-creator of the series and the guy who actually plays Ted Lasso, a direct continuation isn’t possible without Sudeikis. While Sudeikis has already expressed his feelings about ending the story, a recent report from Lesley Goldberg on The Hollywood Reporter‘s TV Top 5 podcast said: “I’ve, you know, heard through sources that Jason Sudeikis desperately misses that character. So, who knows if they’re going to find a way to bring him back with … a fourth season of Ted Lasso or if they’re going to do another spinoff.”
Take that with some skepticism until you hear it from Sudeikis himself. But at least it’s a hopeful sign.
Will there be a fourth season of Ted Lasso?
The show’s lead actor, Jason Sudeikis, confirmed that season 3 would be the final season of Ted Lasso, with this being the plan for the show for a long, long time. In an interview with Deadline, Sudeikis said, “This is the end of this story that we wanted to tell, that we were hoping to tell, that we loved to tell.” Much like the original Star Wars trilogy, the great saga of Ted Lasso will end on its third outing, with the team at Richmond battling the evil Rupert and his empire at West Ham United.
The series ending after just three seasons will undoubtedly leave some fans disappointed since Ted Lasso is currently one of the most popular and acclaimed comedy-dramas of all time. What started as a silly show about a football coach hired to lead a British soccer team became an endearing and uplifting story about a group of people overcoming such adversities as loneliness, trauma, and mental illness. Such a story appealed to countless audiences around the globe, giving them hope and joy when they desperately needed them following the worldwide shutdown due to the pandemic.
Nevertheless, it seems like it’s the right call for Apple TV+ to let the series end now, as the writers would have to go beyond their original intentions for the overall story if they stuck around for more seasons. As many other long-running shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy have proven, lengthy runs can cause a series to lose its magic. The writers being forced to make more seasons for the show would have likely resulted in a decline in Ted Lasso‘s quality. It’s only fair to the people behind the series that they get to end it on their terms and not let its legacy get tarnished with forced narratives.
Will there be any Ted Lasso spinoffs?
Even though this Emmy-winning series has come to an end, Ted Lasso‘s creators are open to the idea of making spin-offs centered around the other cast members. Seasons 2 and 3 have depicted characters like Roy Kent, Keeley Jones, Coach Beard, Jamie Tartt, Sam Obisanya, Trent Crimm, and Nate Shelley branching off into their own storylines. In fact, some recent episodes have spent more time focused on these characters than they did on the show’s titular coach. As a result, the series has shown great potential for these supporting players to have successful solo adventures, and that it would be best to focus on them instead of Ted Lasso for any future projects.
Some of the show’s cast have already shared their wacky ideas for spinoffs with The Daily Beast. Jeremy Swift, who plays Rebecca’s assistant, Leslie Higgins, pitched a story in which his character and Coach Beard start a detective agency similar to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Likewise, James Lance and Charlie Hiscock, who both play Trent and Will the Kit Man, respectively, each picked the other’s character as the perfect candidate for a spinoff (though one could imagine Trent having a successful Frasier-style show). There were also ideas for shows about Roy and his adorable niece, Phoebe. Who wouldn’t love more of them?
“Yeah, I think that we’ve set the table for all sorts of folks,” said Sudeikis, “to get to watch the further telling of these stories. Again, I can’t help but take the question as flattery for what all of us that were working on the show has tried to do. It’s really kind of folks to even consider that because you never know what’s gonna happen when you make things. The fact that people want more, even if it’s a different avenue, is lovely.”
All three seasons of Ted Lasso is now streaming on Apple TV+. Curious how season 3 ends? Then read Ted Lasso season 3 ending explained.
