Ted Lasso Is Coming Back! Jason Sudeikis Set to Reprise His Beloved Role for Long-Awaited Season 4

AFC Richmond is getting the team back together!

On Friday, March 14, Apple TV+ announced that Ted Lasso is set to return for a fourth season — and star and creator Jason Sudeikis will be reprising his role as the titular head coach.

“As we all continue to live in a world where so many factors have conditioned us to ‘look before we leap,” Sudeikis said in a press release. “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.”

Although details about the plot — and release date — of season 4 are being kept under wraps for now, several new members of the show’s creative team have been announced, including executive producer Jack Burditt (whose credits including Nobody Wants This and Modern Family).

Brett Goldstein (who plays player-turned assistant coach Roy Kent) will also return as writer and executive producer, along with fellow EPs Brendan Hunt (who plays Coach Beard), Joe Kelly, Jane Becker, Jamie Lee, Bill Wrubel and Leanne Bowen.

“Ted Lasso has been nothing short of a juggernaut, inspiring a passionate fanbase all over the world, and delivering endless joy and laughter, all while spreading kindness, compassion and unwavering belief,” Matt Cherniss, head of programming for Apple TV+, added in the press release. “Everyone at Apple is thrilled to be continuing our collaboration with Jason and the brilliant creative minds behind this show.”

Until this announcement, the future of Emmy-winning series had been up in the air — with many of the show’s key players unsure if the show would even be returning for another season.

Following the season 3 finale — which saw the titular character return home to Kansas to be with his son Henry — Hannah Waddingham admitted the cast was given no indication if the show would continue.

“I don’t know,” she told Entertainment Weekly in May 2023. “None of us know. I don’t even know if Jason knows. If he does, he is a sly dog.”

Rumors continued to swirl when Sudeikis said that “was just the way [they] conceived” the show during an appearance on the Today show in July 2021.

However, Hunt shared in March 2023 that “it’s not necessarily the end of the series.”

“It’s just likely the end of this story because we always saw it as a three-part thing,” the actor explained when speaking to Deadline. “We never even knew for sure we’d be able to tell all three parts — and suddenly, here we are. So, there will be some type of closure to this beat but closure is not necessarily the end.”

Similarly, Warner Bros. Chairman and CEO Channing Dungey told Deadline in February 2023 that it would be “hard to say goodbye” to the characters and world “you fall in love with” within their preplanned “three-act structure.”

Goldstein also jokingly put forth a season 4 plot suggestion when speaking to the Sunday Times back in 2023, quipping: “Five of the lead characters die in the end. I think one of the reasons it’s like, ‘Is this the final season?’ is because it depends on whether Jason is open to doing ghost Ted.”

“I have pitched him this and he said he’d think about it but I’m not sure how Apple will feel about the idea,” he continued. “I think what we’ve done as a creative team is constantly surprising people and I don’t think anyone thinks season 4 will have a ghost Ted haunting the lockers.”

As for Sudeikis, when asked about a potential spinoff of the hit Apple TV+ series, he revealed that he was open to the story of AFC Richmond continuing. “I think that we’ve set the table for all sorts of folks … to get to watch the further telling of these stories,” he told Deadline in March 2023.

In August 2024, co-creator Bill Lawrence told Collider the future of the show was dependent on Sudeikis after dismissing the season 4 rumors as “groupthink.” Overall, he said, “Whatever Jason feels like doing and whatever his decision is, we’re all down with it.”

Lawrence noted that the actor has to make sacrifices to film the series as it mainly follows an English soccer team and is filmed in London. Therefore, the father of two has to be away from his children for long periods of time during production.

“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,” the co-creator said at the time, adding that “it’s a big deal.”

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The first three seasons of Ted Lasso are now streaming on Apple TV+.