10* Great Ted Lasso Comparisons
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Like many, I’ve become a pretty big Ted Lasso fan. This last week, I attended LassoCon, a virtual Ted Lasso convention. It was a ton of fun! In anticipation of Ted Lasso Season 2 this week, I’ve collected ten thoughts, Captain Isaac style, on season 1, with my general sports and sports movie slant. Enjoy!
#10 Ted Lasso as Gregg Popovich
Popovich is #3 in all-time wins in the NBA as a coach for those who don't know. Provided he coaches one more season, he’ll top the list. He’s third all-time in playoff wins and titles. He’s coached the San Antonio Spurs for over twenty years, and as a result, is the greatest coach for a single team in NBA history. You heard me, Red Auerbach!
In “Stumbling on Wins,” Dave Berri and Martin Schmidt review research on which NBA coaches “positively impact” player development. The top of the list? Gregg Popovich. Popovich was also important because the players that improved under him kept their improvement if they went to new teams. This improvement was slightly contrary to another great coach - Don Nelson, whose players didn’t keep their performance boost when they hopped to new squads, a point that’ll come up again soon! Another unfortunate similarity is that Gregg would often flub player rotations in playoff scenarios despite boosting his players' performance. The last episode of Ted Lasso sums this up as the announcers note that the younger players have improved under Lasso. Still, his insistence on playing Roy Kent may have cost them and resulted in Richmond being relegated.
It’s worth noting that Ted Lasso as a character draws inspiration from other coaches — just so we’re clear, the actors/creators have stated this in interviews. The most notable coach is John Wooden. When Ted hands out books to the players, it’s an homage to Phil Jackson. That said, I felt like adding another top coach to the list.
#9 Soccernomics and Sam
On the subjects of analytics, in the book Soccernomics, two crucial concepts come up. The first is how international players sometimes have trouble in English soccer leagues. A theory posited is that players get homesick. Sam Obisanya is from Nigeria, and Coach Beard notes he’s had difficulty adapting. Ted throws him a birthday party and even buys him food from home. Maybe Ted read Soccernomics on the plane!
Also, it’s well known that the home field advantage is vital in sports. Soccernomics looked at some interesting research about how it’s how the fans influence the referees. Pitches with horse tracks around them had a diminished home-field advantage because fans are further from the referees! Rebecca may have also read Soccernomics. One of her sabotaging methods is reducing fan attendance and selling the spare tickets to the opposing fan base, which Higgins notes to her. It seems like everyone in Ted Lasso has read Soccernomics, which isn’t surprising given how much all of the characters read.
#7 Ted Lasso as Wesley
Another great Ted Lasso moment is the dart game, where Ted reveals he’s left-handed, which has to an homage to the Princess Bride when in a great duel, the two characters reveal they are not left-handed. In a monologue, Ted admits that many people underestimate him, and he lets them. This helps inform a lot of the rest of the show. For instance, in the last game, Ted yells at a referee about a play being offsides, saying he still doesn’t get it. The show then makes a hilarious “Bend it like Beckham” reference. This is also a callback to the original Ted Lasso commercials, where Sudeikis played a football turned soccer coach with the same name but was far more dimwitted. At face value, it can make sense to be a joke, but it also makes sense for Ted to be both trying to yell at the referees while also keeping up a veneer of ignorance, which, we’ve learned, is his m.o! Anyway, I think he’d make a splendid Dread Pirate Roberts if this coaching thing doesn’t work out.
#6 Andrea Anders and Ted!
Andrea Anders, first off, great name, starred as Linda Zwordling in the excellent show “Better Off Ted.” She was a romantic interest for the main character, named Ted. They never got together due to personality conflicts. In the show's unaired “final episode,” there’s even the implication that Ted’s boss may send him overseas. For those that haven’t seen Better Off Ted, it’s a fantastic show and worth the watch.
Andrea stars as Michelle Lasso in Ted Lasso! She has the market cornered for shows starring managers named Ted, where she winds up as the unrequited love interest. Also, tangential points here, on “Better Off Ted,” Ted’s last name is Crisp, which we learn in “Ted Lasso” is the British term for chip. Also, Andrea Anders attended the University of Wisconsin Steven’s Point, which is just an awesome school.
#5 Jamie Tartt as Allen Iverson
So, perhaps one of the best moments in the show was Jason Sudeikis’ incredible recreation of Allen Iverson’s practice rant. But another great tip of the hat to Allen Iverson was when Jamie Tartt, while being a one-person show, steps over his teammate Sam. I’d be shocked if it wasn’t a deliberate homage to Allen Iverson’s stepover of Ty Lue in the NBA Finals. Admittedly, while Allen Iverson did like to shoot a lot like Jamie, he was a pretty good passer for most of his career, unlike Jamie (initially). So the AI/Jamie Tartt comparison only goes so far! A shout out to the fantastic LassoCon, which had an excellent trivia section put together by the organizer Thea Newcomb. The last question was actually about the Allen Iverson rant! I don’t even know what we’re talking about.
#4 Ted Lasso and Bending it Like Beckham
Ted Lasso originated as a series of commercials for the Premier League when it started airing in the United States for those that don't know. The original conception was a dimwitted American football coach getting to coach a Premier League soccer club. The initial reaction was so good that they made a second commercial. In this one, Ted Lasso has returned to the United States and is now coaching a girls’ soccer team. Brendan Hunt notes this was the idea that leads to the final product we got on Apple+. While coaching the girls’ squad, Ted Lasso does much more of the empathetic style and interaction with the players. This is similar to the movie Bend it Like Beckham, where a former footballer coaches the women’s squad while hoping to coach the men’s squad. Two references to Bend it Like Beckham are in Ted Lasso (maybe more?) - he references the movie directly in his initial press conference. When Coach Beard explains offside to Ted, it’s a direct homage to a scene in Bend it Like Beckham.
A fun postscript, in the commercials, as a joke, Ted Lasso ends up coaching Leicester City at the end of the episode. This was a running gag, as the team was bad. However, they did go on to win the Premier League, so perhaps that’s foreshadowing?
#3 Ted Lasso is a Far Superior “Major League”
Major League is an all-time classic sports movie. It hinges on the plot of an unscrupulous female owner intentionally tanking the Cleveland baseball team’s chances of winning for nefarious reasons. If the team loses enough games, they’ll be moved (or relegated?) to Flordia. There’s a catch, in the original script of Major League, the owner was actually “Moneyballing” it by signing undervalued assets but deceiving the rest of the ownership. Because in reality, she was low on payroll and knew she’d be underestimated as a woman. She also was mean to the squad as a way to motivate them. This plot didn’t do well with test audiences. It was rewritten for the owner to be a straightforward villain and the Florida plan to be accurate. It’s worth noting Major League came out fifteen years before Moneyball!
In Ted Lasso, Rebecca Welton got the AFC Richmond squad in a bitter divorce settlement. Her goal is to tank the team as a means of getting back at her ex-husband. Hiring Ted Lasso is meant to be salt in the wound for him. This is a more well-written Major League for a few reasons. First, her logic and motivation make more sense. Also, it’s pretty easy for her to succeed. In Major League, as an example, it would have been trivial to trade away the players that were starting to do well. Major League is a classic that hasn’t aged well, so I’m glad there’s a modern take with a tighter script out now. Although speaking of that …
#2 Ted Lasso is Bull Durham
In an interview with Brendan Hunt, who plays Coach Beard, he noted that Ted Lasso took a lot of inspiration from Bull Durham. Bull Durham is one of the greatest sports movies ever. It centers around a Minor League Baseball team with an up-and-coming star, Nuke Laloosh, played by Tim Robbins, being helped by a fading former star Crash Davis, played by Kevin Costner. Additionally, a fan of the team, Annie Savoy, played by Susan Sarandon, becomes romantically involved with both players while also providing professional assistance.
This dynamic is mirrored almost perfectly with Keeley as Annie, Jamie Tart as Nuke Laloosh, and Roy Kent as Crash Davis. Brendan Hunt noted part of the greatness of Bull Durham was how much of it centered not around baseball but the off-the-field interactions, etc. Ted Lasso certainly follows this, with not a lot of soccer being shown on the screen! Regardless, Bull Durham is one of my favorite sports movies ever, and Ted Lasso is certainly one of my favorite sports shows ever. I am not shocked the writers knew the former well!
#1 Ted and Rebecca Win in the End
The last episode is a heartbreaker as Richmond loses to a last-second heroic push and pass by Jamie Tartt. However, it’s a victory for Ted. While Ted was coaching Jamie, he wanted him to focus more on the team and pass more. Admittedly Jamie’s motivation was in part to defeat Ted, but in the final episode, Jamie does focus more on the team and passing, and Ted’s coaching is a success. And this even fits in with Ted’s overall mantra the whole show. He is more interested in developing his players than winning or losing. Ironically, this gets Rebecca what she wanted as well. As Richmond is now relegated, and needless to say, her ex-husband will be pretty upset. Both the owner and coach of Richmond achieved the goals they had in the first episode, albeit in unexpected ways! In a very Dan Harmon Story Circle way, the main characters went through a journey and got what they wanted but were changed in the process and not the same people they were when they started.
Those are my random thoughts. I hope you enjoyed them. Feel free to let me know what you think on Twitter @nerdnumbers, and I’ll see you next time!