Believe: The Untold Story Behind Ted Lasso

When people ask me about my favorite band, album, or guitar player, I usually say something like “how about a top five or ten list instead” because favorites are hard. While I don’t usually get that question regarding tv shows, my answer would be that Ted Lasso is in my top five. I was late to the Ted Lasso party but when I finally got there I never wanted to leave. In August 2022, I wrote a blog post called “Ten Reasons To Watch Ted Lasso” and reason number ten was that it was the show I didn’t know I needed which, turns out, is author Jeremy Egner’s thesis of Believe: The Untold Story Behind Ted Lasso.

Egner is clearly a fan. A huge fan. And he has the pages of interviews and quotes (with the entire cast) to prove it. In fact, at the end of the book, he lists 24 pages of source notes! His overall description of the show is this: “It’s a story…of teamwork, of hidden talent, of a group of friends looking around at the world’s increasing nasty discourse and deciding that, as corny as it sounds, maybe simple decency and a few laughs still had the power to bring people together.” What a concept! Another theme mentioned throughout the book is timing as Ted Lasso had a captive audience because it premiered during COVID –when people were at home and “badly in need of emotional escape and restoration.” As television editor for The New York Times, Egner had a front row seat to the phenomenon that became Ted Lasso.

If I cited every quote that caught my attention, this review would be 5,000 words. Between Egner’s observations and the cast’s quotes, there is so much to talk about regarding writing, acting, the power of timing, having the right group together for the right roles, and making a tv show with heart. “Its lessons were obvious – be kind to other people, be kind to yourself, understand that though the world can seem designed specifically to knock you down or piss you off, you get to decide how to respond to it.” In short, the show provided “a side door to your soul.” Those words rang true in 2022 and they have never been truer in 2024.

Here are a few things I learned (or was reminded of) from this oral history:

• The idea that Rebecca got AFC Richmond in her divorce from Rupert borrows from Major League. I LOVE that movie and somehow I totally missed the reference!
• I already knew that Ted Lasso was based on an NBC Sports ad campaign starring Jason Sudeikis (Ted) and Brendan Hunt (Coach Beard) but what I thought was a good point made by Bill Bergofin (head of marketing for NBC Sports) is that the show benefitted from the fact that YouTube and social media function as instant focus groups.
• Roy Kent is based on Roy Keane – a “legendary hardscrabble midfielder from Ireland.”
• When Keeley dumps Jamie for Roy, that was a nod to Bull Durham. ANOTHER baseball movie I love and again I missed the reference!
• Ted and Jamie’s “practice” conversation in season one is based on Allen Iverson’s “Practice?” monologue from a 2002 press conference.
• Sudeikis uses music numbers throughout the series because musicals “can break your heart and they can make you laugh at the same time.”
• Egner says that “Ted Lasso is an underdog story told largely by underdogs” meaning most of the actors, other than Sudeikis, weren’t famous before the show.
• One of the “Random Stats” the author adds at the end of chapter six is that “goldfish can actually remember things for months.” HAHA!
• At the end of chapter ten, he gives “Best Save” to Rebecca in the tenth episode of season three because “she saves us from having to hear about Jack again.” I laughed out loud at that because Jack is my least favorite character arc of the whole series. Second place for most annoying goes to Shandy and third goes to Zava.
• Sarah Niles (who plays Dr. Sharon Fieldstone) had to learn how to ride a bike for the part!
• When Higgins lists off all the players’ hometowns in the Christmas episode, those are the actors’ actual hometowns.
• Because the show was produced by Apple, it had access to pricey songs written and performed by music legends including Queen, Beyonce, A Tribe Called Quest, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie, among others.
• Sam and Rebecca – a nod to Cheers.
• This almost made my head explode: “Keeley is based on Keeley Hazell, a former pinup, who played Bex, Rupert’s young wife, and became a writer in season three.”
• Tina Fey, who Sudeikis worked with on SNL, gave him a career-changing piece of advice: “If you can improvise, you can write.”

I’ve always said that the writing in Ted Lasso is incredible – you can rewatch the series multiple times (I have for sure) and always catch something new. As Egner states, “The show is nothing if not hyper-referential with lines, scenes, and occasionally entire episodes directly quoting earlier works, and part of the fun of watching it is the scavenger-hunt dimension of deciphering the various nods and allusions.” This sharp storytelling is what kept me (and I assume most people) glued to the television because you think you know what a character is going to say or do and then they surprise you – which is especially true of Nate and Ted. “As soon as Ted gets to Richmond, he starts displaying the charms and flaws that will come to complicate and define him over the next three seasons.”

I strongly feel that, ultimately, Ted Lasso is about redemption. According to Egner, it’s about personal transformation. Says Sudeikis: “This show is about good and evil…and truth and lies. This show is about all that stuff, but it’s mostly about our response to those things.” Phil Dunster (who plays Jamie) adds this insight: “I think it’s through Keeley that [his character] learned the most. Like any good relationship, both members know when to be the teacher and when to be the taught.”

As Juno Temple (Keeley) points out, the show’s uncanny ability to pivot in terms of walking the line between too corny and too serious is one of many aspects that contributes to its brilliance. In that same vein, the show impressed me from the beginning because, from a writing standpoint, it made the viewer care about so many minor characters– i.e. the bar trio, Mae, and Trent Crim, among others. Regarding Trent, Egner makes a similar point: “Other characters that seemed minor ended up becoming more prominent.”

If you’re a Ted Lasso fan (I feel like most people who have seen the show are fans), and you like backstories, this book is a fun behind-the-scenes look at how the show got made, how the cast came together, and its impact on millions of viewers. Learning how much thought went into each character, episode, and season is fascinating and I’m glad Egner took the time to write about it.