Potential spoilers for upcoming Ted Lasso plot points. Discussion of season one plot but no spoilers for recent episodes ahead.
Apple TV+ and Ted Lasso have struck a licensing deal with the Premier League for about $680,000 (£500,000), allowing the show to use archival footage, logos, club kits, “and even the league trophy,” as reported by The Athletic.
Obviously, we need to speculate about what this means for the show.
I will preface this by saying I love watching soccer–specifically women’s soccer–but I readily admit that I understand very little about soccer, and even less about British football leagues. Much like Ted Lasso himself!
Here’s what we do know: Season one ended with AFC Richmond (a fictional team) losing their final game, resulting in their demotion (“relegation”) from the Premier League to the second-tier Championship League.
This switching of leagues is a real thing that happens. As Wikipedia explains it:
The three lowest placed teams in the Premier League are relegated to the Championship, and the top two teams from the Championship promoted to the Premier League, with an additional team promoted after a series of play-offs involving the third, fourth, fifth and sixth placed clubs.
So why would Apple TV+ spend this much money licensing Premier League assets? Well, the season finale of Ted Lasso is this week, and it sees the team playing for their chance to win their promotion.
There are some people online complaining that the deal itself constitutes an IRL spoiler because it now seems entirely impossible that Richmond won’t end up back in the Premier League at the end of this next episode. And I can respect the desire to remain as unaware of plot details as is humanly possible but also, look at the show we’re watching. Yes, Ted Lasso is more than capable of devastating us emotionally but ultimately, this is a show about hope and growth. This seems like the kind of show where the good guys win in the end.
At the very least, it seems inevitable that they win at the end of this season, and get to spend the next and unfortunately (unless something changes) final season playing in the Premier League, possibly interacting with real teams and players, perhaps with some player cameos. (The show has actually had a number of cameos, mostly from British media, that many Americans likely didn’t even catch. But so far there haven’t been any real players featured that I know of.)
We may not know everything this deal means, but it seems to point toward exciting developments ahead!
(via The Athletic, image: Apple TV+)
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