Ted Lasso Makes Surprise Season 4 Return With Jason Sudeikis

Never count out the ragtag team of AFC Richmond. On Friday, AppleTV+ announced that Ted Lasso season 4 is indeed happening, with series star Jason Sudeikis reprising his titular role as Coach Lasso.

“As we all continue to live in a world where so many factors have conditioned us to ‘look before we leap,” Sudeikis, who also serves as an executive producer, said in a statement, “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.”

Ted Lasson season four welcomes Emmy-winning writer Jack Burditt (Nobody Wants This, 30 Rock) as executive producer alongside returning producers Brendan Hunt (who also stars as Coach Beard), Joe Kelly, Jane Becker, Jamie Lee, and Bill Wrubel. Brett Goldstein, who plays footballer turned coach Roy Kent, serves as writer and executive producer on the fourth season alongside Leanne Bowen. Sara Walker and Phoebe Walsh will also serve as writers and producers for season four, and Sasha Garron co-produces. Bill Lawrence, who originally helped conceive the show and is now helping to shepherd a third season of the AppleTV+ comedy Shrinking, also executive produces via his Doozer Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television and Universal Television, a division of NBCUniversal Content.

The news comes as a bit of a shock, as Sudeikis had indicated ahead of the third season, which concluded in May 2023, that it may be the Emmy-winning show’s last. “This is the end of this story that we wanted to tell, that we were hoping to tell, that we loved to tell,” he confirmed to Deadline in March 2023. “The fact that folks will want more and are curious beyond more than what they don’t even know yet—that being season three—it’s flattering.” He added, “Yeah, I think that we’ve set the table for all sorts of folks…to get to watch the further telling of these stories.”

As such, the final episode of Ted Lasso season three acted as a potential series finale, concluding with happy endings for most of the main characters. Ted returned to Kansas to be closer to his son and ex-wife; Hannah Waddingham’s Rebecca and Juno Temple’s Keeley partnered to start an AFC Richmond women’s team; and Roy ascended to his position as new manager of the AFC Richmond men’s squad.

Nevertheless, Waddingham revealed her hopes for more Ted Lasso with Vanity Fair, saying at the show’s season three premiere in Los Angeles: “It is the end of this particular story thread. You’ll know why once you see it.” At the same time, she continued, “I genuinely have no idea what’s next. I’m not sure Jason even knows what he wants to do, but I’d love to see a spin-off series with Keeley, Rebecca, and Higgins. There are so many characters that are beloved that it would be reasonable for them to do a spin-off. We will have to wait and find out.”

Last August, the tides on a fourth installment began to turn. Deadline reported that Warner Bros. Television had picked up the options for three original Ted Lasso cast members who had contracts under Equity, the UK’s acting union. That would be Waddingham, who plays AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Welton; Goldstein, who now has a recurring role on Shrinking; and Jeremy Swift, who plays director of football operations Leslie Higgins. They were all reportedly contacted by Warner Bros. Television about returning to the show.

Once that trio signed off, according to Deadline, the next step would be securing cast members with SAG-AFTRA contracts, whose initial options had expired. That list includes Sudeikis and Temple, but potentially not Phil Dunster, who played reformed bad boy Jamie Tartt and had commitments to two other streaming shows: Prime Video’s The Devil’s Hour and Apple’s Surface. Vanity Fair reached out to reps for the series for comment at the time, and it appears to be coming now in the form of a renewal.

Sudeikis is set to appear on the New Heights podcast with Jason and Travis Kelce today, where he will surely share more about Ted Lasso’s fourth—and final?—season.