Ted Lasso’s Lessons Transcend a Love of Sports
As a naturally empathetic person, I always find myself trying to latch on to every character in a show, sometimes it almost feels like they’re real. I credit a lot of this to good writing and character-building. Getting to know the different characters, their backstories, their traumas, and just overall getting big glimpses into their lives are what help you invest in them as people, which is very similar to connecting to others in real life. The show, Ted Lasso, taught its viewers a lot about how vulnerabilities and honesty can make you invested in something or someone. Although I love every character dearly in Ted Lasso, this “something” that it got me invested in, oddly, was soccer!
Ted Lasso is an Apple TV original show from 2020 that presents compelling characters and narratives that reach all audiences. Through a narrative analysis of scenes from various episodes of Ted Lasso, I argue that the show provides a message of how empathy and investing in others can help you care about things you never thought you could, such as (for me) sports. This is a message that is relatable, regardless of the viewer’s level of interest in sports. I chose the narrative perspective because I feel that understanding plots, characters, points of view, scenes, and conflicts is crucial to understanding and analyzing how they can affect our real-life interests and how we listen and invest in others’ lives around us.
The first scene I’d like to talk about is from season 1, episode 1. When the show starts, Ted Lasso is an American football coach to a Division II team in Kansas and is hired to coach AFC Richmond, an English soccer team. He doesn’t know the rules, he doesn’t know anybody, and he doesn’t really know the culture. The reasons why he’s hired are revealed later, but the point is that he’s clearly inexperienced and not equipped to coach an elite soccer team. He
He is the definition of an underdog when the show starts, and I think it’s easy to root for him from the jump because of the relatability of feeling imposter syndrome. Ted acknowledges his inexperience and embraces it in his first press conference in the first episode saying, “No I have never coached the sport that you folks call football, at any level…but I’ll tell you what I do know, I know that AFC Richmond, like any team I’ve ever coached, is gonna go out there and give ya everything they’ve got for all four quarters.” The audience is skeptical, especially since the terminology is “two halves” not “four quarters.” He has faith in himself though. This blind faith/optimism and the fact that he shows kindness to everyone (I.e., giving biscuits to Rebecca on his first day…and every subsequent day) makes him a more sympathetic character from the first episode. Ted started the show knowing nothing about soccer, and it made me feel like he and I were the same. We learned about the sport together, and we learned about the players together. Getting to see how Ted took his disadvantages and took his team to victory was just one of those things that you relished in just because you can’t help but think, “I remember when he was just a mere American football coach!” A scholarly article in 2021 from Psychology Today written by Matt Johnson Ph.D., talks more about underdogs and why, psychologically we love them. He says, “We love underdog stories because we feel like they need us. It creates that gravitational bond between us and the underdog because we love to feel needed as social creatures.” I feel this encapsulates how most people feel while watching the show.
Another episode I’d like to dive into too is season 2, episode 8. For a little backstory, Jamie Tartt, a player on AFC Richmond, has always had a rough relationship with his dad. His dad was always super tough on him when it came to soccer, never telling him he loved him, and Jamie projected a lot of that onto his other teammates and his relationships with everyone in season 1. It didn’t even matter if Jamie was the star or not, something was always an issue whether it was another dumb move he made in the game, or the way he conducted himself. Jamie takes a little break from Manchester and goes on a reality show where he acts like an asshole to piss off his dad. When he rejoins the team later in the show, Jamie becomes a much better person after being given a second chance by Coach Lasso. In this particular episode, episode 8 of season 2, Jamie’s dad comes to visit the team in the locker room after a tough loss they had, and he rips into Jamie in front of everyone. He mockingly says, “And there he is…my son…now, maybe I’m thinking he’s still in Manchester and that’s why you missed that set in the first half…you absolutely bowled it…what were you thinking?” Jamie’s dad then called him a “moody bitch.” When Jamie responded by saying “Don’t speak to me like that” things escalated, and Jamie ended up punching him. Afterwards, one of the coaches, Roy Kent, says nothing but goes up to hug Jamie as he sobs in his arms. This scene was just super emotional to watch because we see throughout the whole show how hard all of them train and how hard they are on themselves. The thing with sports is that losses happen, and they don’t need to be taking any more shit that they aren’t already giving to themselves. Coach Kent hugging Jamie in this scene too just shows how seriously the situation escalated and how a little support can go a long way. For context, Roy is not a hugger, and Jamie is not a crier, so it was a pivotal moment for a lot of characters. Now that I know more about Roy and Jamie through Jamie’s terrible father and Roy’s show of empathy, I care more deeply for their loss and the toll it took on them.
That’s only one example where we get glimpses into the players’ personal struggles and helps us empathize with them. A few other examples would be when Colin Hughes comes out to everyone in season 3 episode 9, and when everyone gets together for Christmas in season 2 when they can’t spend it with their own families. We learn over the course of the show how goofy, lovable, and passionate all of the players can be. You learn how the life of a footballer can be hard in many ways, it can keep you from your family, it can cause divides between you and staying true to yourself, and it can bring back traumatic memories from childhood. All of these elements make their losses and their wins more powerful, because to us, it’s just a game, but to them, it’s their lives. Football had to come above many things in their lives including family, and even their own identities.
Players are not the only ones that are passionate, however. This brings me to Nathan Shelley. Shelley is a kit-man for Richmond and quickly turned into an assistant coach due to his genius play ideas and passion for the sport. He eventually turns his back on Richmond and ends up resenting Lasso at the end of season 2 due to his own insecurities, feelings of inferiority, and insane need for validation. He goes on to be the head coach of the rival team to Richmond called West Ham. An article by Collider titled, “‘Ted Lasso’ Season 3 Isn’t Afraid to Let Richmond’s Players Fail”, tells us that Ted Lasso “prefers to put as many roadblocks in its path as possible. As season 3 plays out, Nate’s West Ham is that pothole that put a halt on all the goodwill this team had built.” There’s so much build-up to the eventual defeat of West Ham. It doesn’t come without struggles and emotions taking over at previous games, and that’s why I feel talking about this perfectly ties into the narrative analysis because we visually see their anger, passion, and need to win against West Ham. This need partly comes from wanting justice for Ted after witnessing Shelley rip down Ted’s infamous “Believe” sign he had as a motivator for the players in the locker room.
A 2023 Collider article titled, “Brett Goldstein Talks ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 3 and the Roy & Keeley Dynamic”, explains how the team’s failures on Ted Lasso make us love Richmond’s players more. I believe this is true mostly because of how relatable a lot of their struggles are or how easy they are to sympathize with. The article says, “One of the first signs of a Richmond player struggling was way back in Season 1 when we first meet Roy Kent. At that point in his career, his playing days were numbered. He was aging out, losing his speed, and nowhere near the caliber of the player he had been in his decorated career. It was hard to watch him come to terms with the reality that his time as a player was coming to an end. Seeing his inner struggle, which he projected onto others like Jamie Tartt, was all too relatable for anyone who’s ever had to come to grips with their playing days being over. Yet, seeing Roy go through that and find a way to bounce back through other avenues in life (coaching and dating, for example) made the once grizzled and stubborn character one of the more lovable people of the bunch.” Soccer meant a lot to Roy, he had done it for most of his life, and you could see how upset he was when told he was aging out of the sport. I feel like everyone has a passion for something in their life, whether it’s a sport, a love for a TV show, or a hobby they have, and it’s heartbreaking when it ends. The relatability of Roy’s struggle and seeing how he bounces back is a rewarding thing for the audience to see.
I felt a lot of emotions throughout the show, and I felt the highs and lows of every character arc and every plot. The show writers undoubtedly poured their whole hearts into developing these characters and narratives and wrote them for a broad audience, not just sports fans. The show provides a clear message of how empathizing with your peers and investing in the lives of others around you can help you care about things you didn’t before. I feel that because I know what it feels like to age out of something you love, I connect with Roy Kent, and I know what it’s like to struggle with validation from a family member. That’s why the team’s losses hit so hard, not because I care about wins or losses, but because I know it’s tough for them to go through, just like all of their other struggles. I found myself listening to the rules of the game and paying attention to their coaching strategies because I knew that if they led their team to victory, what that would mean to them, and that maybe, despite all of the crap they’d gone through in their lives, they’d get a win.
I wasn’t the only one who found a sudden love for soccer though after seeing the show. An article written by Kevin Baxter from the LA Times in 2023 said that “[In the summer of 2022] when the technology giant was riding a high on ‘Lasso,’ it agreed to a $2.5-billion, 10-year global broadcast deal with major league Soccer, the sport’s top-flight league in the U.S. and Canada.” Although Apple TV insisted it was a coincidence, it definitely didn’t hurt it.” They also dove into how the rabid fans in Ted Lasso reminded them of sports games in real life as well. Jason Sudeikis (Ted Lasso) even said himself, “This show is as much about soccer as ‘Rocky’ is about boxing…but we wanted soccer fans to feel it honors the spirit of that beautiful game.”
A scholarly article from Virginia Tech written in March 2023 says, “The show is really about the work and necessity of building communities by drawing strength from one another — and everyone is part of the team mentality.” So, why does investing in shows matter? Investing in shows matters because it goes beyond investing in a program. You’re learning how to relate to others as well as expanding your interests and increasing your empathy, and sometimes if you watch enough, according to a 2018 article by Vox on why we get so emotionally attached to TV and movie characters, it may even start to affect your personalities and behaviors. At the end of the day, Ted Lasso is about people, and people are fun to care about. It’s good to feel seen and find places where we feel represented. It makes us feel things and discover new hobbies and passions, and that’s what life is all about.
