Apple
Trigger warning: I’m a soccer guy. Huge soccer guy, in fact. It’s my favorite sport, Liverpool is my team, and Italy is my country — and the United States, of course, 2026 World Cup Winners.
In my defense, on multiple fronts: A) I grew up playing soccer, B) football (American) used to be my favorite sport but the Jets have simply — similar to what the Joker did to the citizen of Gotham in The Dark Knight — broken my spirit completely. You try being a Jets and Mets fan for two decades and tell me how much you enjoy mainstream American sports. And C), my Dad worked for a company based in Liverpool, so it’s not like I blindly cherrypicked them. Although to be fair, I did consciously choose them over Everton, but this was before Jurgen Klopp delivered both Champions League and Premier League glory. But I digress.
The reason I so elaborately explain my previous footballing affiliations, other than to please the almighty Googly Word Count Gods, is to make clear that even someone like myself, someone so steeped in soccer culture, could sleep on Ted Lasso for far longer than I should have. Despite quite literally only hearing good things about it for an entire year, I didn’t get around to checking it out until a couple of weeks ago as I was under the siege of an anxiety attack and needed something to level me back out. Maybe I had a mental block with AppleTV+, subconsciously protesting having to sign up for yet another streaming service. Maybe it’s because the show hasn’t been properly marketed, if at all, especially when considering how much the character of Ted Lasso has been remolded into more of an aggressively nice guy than an arrogantly dumb guy, which is the way he was portrayed in the original NBC Sports adverts.
But then, last week, Ted Lasso got perhaps the best marketing a series like this could: it got nominated for an award, particularly a Golden Globe for Best Comedy Series. And while the Golden Globes are certainly far from prestigious, they are quite popular, and that counts for something, particularly when it comes to growing its profile.
Fast forward to just a few short moments ago as I was eating a bowl of Trader Joe’s version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and I read about season two having two more episodes than the first did. And I felt inspired, inspired to do what I can to break the cycle of ignorance and convince someone, anyone, to check out Ted Lasso.
Truly, this is not an ad, but merely a result of anecdotal experience. I cannot count how many friends of mine, myself included, have resisted pressing play, only to one day cave and wonder what took so long, and when it’s appropriate to do a rewatch. So if you find yourself in that current conundrum, wondering whether you should give AppleTV+ a go *just* for Ted Lasso, let this be your sign: yes, yes you should.
Plus, everyone knows you could always just sign up for a free trial and cancel after a week. In fact, if Ted Lasso was a real guy, I’m sure he’d encourage such prudent spending.
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