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In the summer of 2020, the year \u201cTed Lasso\u201d debuted on Apple TV, the largest audience for a televised soccer match in the U.S. was 1.7 million. Shortly before the soccer-based sitcom returned for a fourth season last Wednesday, nearly 63 million viewers in the U.S. watched the World Cup final.<\/p>\n
Brendan Hunt, the actor who plays Lasso\u2019s loyal sidekick Coach Beard in the series, can\u2019t prove the show is responsible for that growth. But since he can\u2019t disprove it either, he\u2019ll just go with the flow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love it if we\u2019ve had a role at all,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we are a pebble in that avalanche, then I\u2019m happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
What the Emmy-winning series has undeniably done is bring soccer into millions of unsuspecting households that had previously avoided the sport like a plague. So while Jason Sudeikis, the star and co-creator, alongside Hunt, of \u201cTed Lasso,\u201d insists the show is not about soccer, the sport sure gets a lot of screen time. And that has made the game more palatable and popular for a public that can now relate to it.<\/p>\n
Emmy-winning \u2018Ted Lasso\u2019 returns for a fourth season, with Jason Sudeikis coaching a women\u2019s team. Stars Hannah Waddingham and Juno Temple also return.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tricked them by putting soccer in a comedy show,\u201d Hunt said. \u201cThe first thing you\u2019ve got to do to get somebody to become a soccer fan is just make them care about one team, to find one team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this instance we\u2019ve made them care about this fictional team and that easily can transmute, if you\u2019re not careful, into caring about other teams. And then hopefully the sport itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
After a three-year hiatus, \u201cLasso\u201d returned for Season 4 last week with the series\u2019 eponymous title character, played by Sudeikis, returning to Richmond to coach a fledgling second-division women\u2019s team. Hunt\u2019s understated character makes his first appearance of the season in Episode 2 Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is clearly going through something,\u201d Hunt said. \u201cIs it just what happens to Beard when he\u2019s away from Ted for too long or is there something important that has happened? We\u2019ll find out before too long.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking of having gone through something, Hunt, who plays a fictional coach for a fictional team, spent the first part of his summer being a very real journalist at a very real tournament, attending 14 World Cup games in more than half a dozen stadiums \u2014 including the Spain-France semifinal in Arlington, Texas, which he watched from the press box, and the Spain-Argentina final, part of which he watched from field level.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a really cool experience,\u201d said Hunt, who did a World Cup podcast with Rebecca Lowe, the studio host of Fox\u2019s tournament coverage.<\/p>\n
But for Hunt, 54, the most passionate soccer fan among the writers and actors on \u201cTed Lasso,\u201d the sport was an acquired taste. Half a lifetime ago, Hunt was a die-hard Chicago Bears fan working in residence with an improv group at a small, aging theater in Amsterdam when he got swept up in Dutch soccer culture.<\/p>\n
About a possible return of the series for a fourth season, the Emmy-winning co-creator and actor says, \u201cEverything is on the table, including nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n