After a two-year hiatus, the fan-favorite, footy-themed Apple TV show Ted Lasso returned for an improbable fourth season this past Wednesday — and this time, everyone’s favorite mustache returns to the fictional English soccer club AFC Richmond to coach its upstart women’s team.

• Our group chats are naturally lighting up with analysis of Episode 1 and plans for watching this Wednesday’s Episode 2, so let’s chat about the uplifting comedy’s return and its IRL connection to women’s sports. Caution: The mildest of spoilers ahead.

Surprised that Ted Lasso is back for a fourth season? You’re not alone — co-creator and star Jason Sudeikis always planned for the show to follow a three-season arc. The would-be series finale ended on a conclusive note, with Lasso leaving his post as head coach of AFC Richmond’s men’s team and returning home to Kansas City to be near his son.

• But it’s time to be a goldfish and forget that tidy ending. A year after releasing Season 3, Sudeikis felt the Lasso universe had more to offer, but another season with the same team felt wrong creatively. Enter: the booming world of women’s sports.

Season 4 opens with Ted in Kansas City, spending time with his son Henry but unfulfilled professionally. His old boss, AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Welton, surprises him in his driveway — with Higgins and Keeley in tow, of course — and ultimately asks him to return to London to coach Richmond’s new women’s team as they seek promotion from the league’s second tier.

• The rest is history Episodes 2 through 10…and after an underwhelming Season 3, critics and fans alike are already loving it.

While Richmond is a fictional club, the show has many connections to actual women’s sports teams:

• Sudeikis is famously a massive women’s sports supporter and particularly vocal fan of the WNBA’s NY Liberty along with his hometown NWSL team, the KC Current. He frequently attends games and has brought Lasso castmates along with him. His fandom and the Current’s rapid rise through the league inspired the turn to women’s sports for Season 4.

• Welton visits Kansas City in Episode 1, featuring an info-gathering, fourth wall–breaking trip to watch the Current play Gotham FC. Much of the episode was filmed around Kansas City and at the Current’s stadium.

• Keeley sets the stage for the rest of the season when she wonders aloud if Richmond’s women should have their own stadium like the Current do. It’s a nod to a huge women’s sports landmark: CPKC Stadium is the world’s first built solely for a pro women’s sports team. The shoutout was a pinch-me moment for Current ownership.

• Three weeks ago, the Current hosted a Lasso–themed FIFA men’s World Cup watch party at that historic stadium, featuring cast appearances, merch, and a sneak peek at Season 4. So fun.

Choosing to make the fourth season — and potentially a few more — about a women’s team isn’t just a plot device. It’s a sign of the ever-growing cultural power of women’s sports, which carry the same energy of empowerment, optimism, and goodwill that Ted Lasso is known and loved for. Plus, it could help boost that cultural power even further.

• The show has already introduced tons of North Americans to the world of English men’s football, educating and nurturing the fandom in a burgeoning market and making it more inclusive for people who have never engaged before.

• Can it do the same for the women’s game? Well, with the new season released just as momentum starts to build towards next summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, it’s time to believe.