Have you watched Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso series? It has a stuck a chord on both sides of the Atlantic enjoying a level of success few would have anticipated. Ted Lasso’s humble origins are, after all, a comedy sketch promoting NBC’s Premier League coverage in the US. Its rise to fame is astounding.
The Ted Lasso premise has a collision of cultures at its heart – but a collision without conflict or judgement. Everyone is included in a little ribbing – the English, the French, the Mexicans, the Nigerians. There is affectionate humor towards cultural difference and a ditching of the superiority trope. How refreshing. Its feel good narrative of laughter, tears, triumphs and disappointments dramatizes personal journeys towards a better version of self and, ultimately, towards a better version of humanity. This is the opposite of celebrity gloss and elitism addressing instead the commonality of ‘being human’ – calling out the shallowness of what is often revered in contemporary culture.
“Ted Lasso might just be the best-ever “feel good” series. It thrives on finding a way to remain fresh and never loses its heart or moral compass.”
– Audience review for Ted Lasso (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10986410/reviews)
“What a feel good series! Relatable and witty with lots of laughs. A breath of fresh air that brings the meaning of connection and team spirit to life.”
– Audience Review for Ted Lasso (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/ted_lasso/s01/reviews?type=user)
As a side note it is no coincidence that Schitt’s Creek shares many of the same characteristics.
“Leaves you with the same feeling that Schitt’s Creek left you with, up lifting. If only the world had endless Ted Lasso’s in it.”
– Audience review (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10986410/reviews)
Both embody a positive ‘blindness’: Schitt’s Creek to sexual orientation; Ted Lasso to class, colour, gender and cultural heritage. Both point to the importance of deeper human connection – and a greater appreciation of kindness, friendship and community (keenly felt during and post pandemic). Both are brilliantly written – empathically involving the audience with the characters in such a way that you laugh, cry and cheer with impunity.
“After a long while, I found this show which has left the feeling of longing, the feeling that the show should never end. All the characters started obnoxious and then really grew on me.”
“Watching them makes me want to lead a better, more fulfilling life.”
– Review Schitt’s Creek (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3526078/reviews)
“Schitt’s Creek” is about love and humanity, told in an absolutely hilarious way. The show gets honest laughs and the characters become like family.”
– Audience review (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3526078/reviews)
“It is a story about family, love, acceptance and embracing diversity…”
– Audience review (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3526078/reviews)
But what are the other traits and influences of the Ted Lasso phenomenon of which we should take note? And what is its role in raising the profile of soccer in the US? This is where we draw an unlikely parallel between Ted Lasso and the Netflix sensation, Drive to Survive. Both have shaped a different kind of engagement with sport thereby creating new expressions of fandom – more inclusive, more diverse and more integrated into the mainstream.
This new engagement foregrounds the human over the more one-dimensional angles of performance and competition. That is not to say these are not important. Rather they are brought to life in 3D by the backfilling of the human story and in so doing they transpose the importance of the sporting paradigm from winning to taking part. F1, before its transformation under the new ownership of Liberty Media, had a narrow, diehard fan base of predominantly male motorheads.
The problem was that the machines trumped the drivers in terms of the headline narrative which left many would-be fans cold. Drive to Survive was not an accidental hit. It was a conscious strategic move to integrate human endeavor, heartache, rivalry, skill, risk into the F1 landscape – and to do so in such a way that knowledge of motorsport became incidental – no longer a prerequisite to emotional investment.
Drive to Survive definitely had first off the grid advantage. but look how other sports are scrambling to follow suit – golf, tennis, soccer. Ted Lasso contributes to soccer’s human story and is, at the very least, an ‘assist’ in the continuing rise of soccer in the US.
And all of this has important implications for best in class research
The fact that knowledge of a sport itself can become incidental to engagement has important implications for insight professionals involved in sports audience research. With fandom in sport now taking many different forms it can be as much about the human stories of sport as the sport itself. Too much research focuses on ‘the game’, ‘the play’ and the winning and losing.
What is increasingly required of research design is a sensitivity to the people and the way in which values resonate both on an individual and cultural level. The typical Customer Experience questionnaire won’t cut it. More in-depth approaches are required with space for storytelling and the exploration of connection. Using the plethora of digital tools available research approaches can still be at scale and across geographies.
This links to second important point. To focus on ‘response and engagement’ without understanding the underlying cultural values and dynamic of the sport itself risks delivering ‘data without depth’. The lazy assumption that ‘it’s the same sport’ can lead to confused and misleading outcomes. Framing understanding of a specific sport within the tension of ‘otherness’ and ‘proximity’ is a helpful start-point.
When the sport’s origin is close to home its values are often closely tied to a nation’s brand values and heritage. When it is ‘imported’ it is often an exaggerated or amplified culture carrier of the ‘other nation’. The cultural lens matters greatly and requires the same level of investment and attention in research and interpretation as the audience interaction.
For example in Ted Lasso US viewers are exposed to soccer as a counterpoint to American sporting culture: performance and winning become separate concepts (remember Lasso’s shock at the idea of a tied result); the experience of the team trumps the individual star; the taking part begins to equal the importance of winning (well almost); mental health and happiness are valued above being ‘all in’; relegation and promotion mean dreams come true (money is not the whole game).
This same dynamic does not apply in the UK where the Ted Lass portrayal of ‘football’ is interpreted as a nostalgic return to soccer’s roots. Soccer, in this articulation, remains a club not a franchise – for the people not the owners – for the fans not the corporates (sadly far from the current reality at the top of the game).
In conclusion
We need to rethink how we design research designed to grow a sport’s franchise, audience base and levels of engagement. We need to go beyond the formulaic Customer Experience questionnaires of ‘response’ to the more complex dynamics of engagement and connection. This requires sensitive cultural analysis approaches as well as research designed to elicit journeys of resonance and connection.
Above all it requires focusing on the web of human stories which sit below the protruding ‘game’ tip of the iceberg It the web of human stories which engage more widely and often more deeply than the game itself. As the ambition of sports brands and franchises extends across the world, there will be a sizeable opportunity to deliver culturally rooted strategic insight for fandom growth.
