Ted Lasso season 3: everything we know so far

Ted Lasso season 3 still appears to be a long way off. Production on the potentially final entry in the hugely popular and award-winning Apple TV Plus show has been ongoing for nine months now and it doesn’t seem like there’s an end goal (pun intended) in sight.

Still, while we’re being made to wait a long time for one of the best Apple TV Plus shows to return to our screens, there’s a lot for you to read up on about its development. Below, you’ll find everything worth knowing about Ted Lasso’s third season on Apple TV Plus, including its cast, story details, the show’s future, and more.

Major spoilers for Ted Lasso’s first two seasons follow. Additionally, we might enter spoiler territory for Ted Lasso season 3 in our cast and plot sections. Use the navigation bar to your left to skip ahead if you’re avoiding them.

Ted Lasso season 3 release date: what we know

Ted Lasso season 3 doesn’t have a release date. It’s been in production since March 2022, but the final whistle (pun intended again) hasn’t been blown on principal photography yet.

As of August 2022, production was ongoing in London (thanks to Reddit for the catch). That’s despite Nick Mohammed, who plays Nate, telling Deadline in June that that Ted Lasso season 3 was “halfway through filming”, so it seemed production would wrap in September.

That hasn’t been the case. Season 3 has been hit by multiple issues, including script rewrites, the cast and crew having to take time off, and other filming delays (per Puck News), resulting in a collective growing frustration among those outside of the core creative team. Speaking to The Daily Express in November, star Jeremy Swift said filming was ongoing.

But hope springs eternal. Co-creator and star Jason Sudeikis has suggested we’ll see Ted Lasso season 3 “soon” in an Instagram post. Sudeikis’ fellow actor Brendan Hunt also took to Instagram to show he had headed home for the holidays, too, so maybe filming has ended and no-one’s reported on it yet. 

Based on a recent 2023 Apple TV Plus teaser trailer, Ted Lasso’s next installment is still slated to arrive next year. Hopefully, that’s still the case and we’ll get more details on its launch date in the near future.

Ted Lasso season 3 cast

Here’s who we expect to see again in Ted Lasso season 3:

• Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso
• Hannah Waddingham as Rebecca Welton
• Brendan Hunt as Coach Beard
• Brett Goldstein as Roy Kent
• Juno Temple as Keeley Jones
• Nick Mohammed as Nate Shelley
• Jeremy Swift as Leslie Higgins
• Phil Dunster as Jamie Tartt
• Toheeb Jimoh as Sam Obisanya
• Cristo Fernandez as Dani Rojas

Prominent members of the supporting cast are also likely to return, including Kola Bokinni as Isaac McAdoo, David Elsendoorn as Jan Maas, Annette Badland as pub landlord Mae, and Anthony Head as West Ham United’s new owner Rupert Mannion.

Showrunner Bill Lawrence has revealed that James Lance’s Trent Crimm and Sarah Niles’ sports psychologist Sharon will feature in season 3 (per Deadline), too. Meanwhile, Apple CEO Tim Cook seems likely to cameo, given he’s seen celebrating a Richmond goal on his Twitter account. Jeremy Swift also confirmed Cook visited the show’s London-based set in September 2022.

Meanwhile, according to two Reddit posts, Match of the Day host Gary Lineker, football pundit Thierry Henry, and football commentator Arlo White will also return in cameo capacities.

Based on leaked images (thanks, Reddit), there’ll be additions to AFC Richmond’s squad. Some new players are visible in the leak, which shows Richmond clashing with West Ham in what’s sure to be a fiery encounter. Once we learn more about these new signings, we’ll update this section.

We do know the identity of one actor who’s joined Ted Lasso’s ranks, though. Per Deadline, Jodi Balfour (For All Mankind) has signed on in a major recurring role. Balfour will play a charming venture capitalist called Jack, so expect AFC Richmond to be the subject of a takeover bid. Per Above the Line, Becky Ann Baker (Freaks and Geeks) has also been cast as Ted’s mom in Ted Lasso season 3. We’ll wait for Apple to confirm these additions, though, before adding them to the official cast list.

Ted Lasso season 3 story

Major spoilers for Ted Lasso season 2 follow.

There are two major storylines that Ted Lasso season 3 needs to deliver a fitting ending to.

The first concerns AFC Richmond’s Premier League return. After securing promotion on the final day of last season, Richmond are back in the big time, but it won’t be easy for them to try and secure an unprecedented Leicester City-level title triumph. 

19 other clubs stand in their way, including Manchester City. It was City who relegated Richmond in their final top-flight match in season 1, with the same club thrashing them 5-0 in season 2’s FA Cup semi-final. So we’re hoping that Richmond will finally get one over one of their biggest rivals next time around.

City won’t be the only rival Richmond has to contend with. In the season 2 finale, Nate, Ted’s former prodigy, joined West Ham as their new manager. His appointment comes after Rebecca’s former husband, aka Rupert Mannion, bought the Premier League outfit.

So Ted Lasso season 3 is gearing up to pit the master versus his apprentice. Taking to Twitter after season 2’s last episode, actor Nick Mohammed posted an intriguing 12-point document that reveals why Nate departed Richmond for their London rivals:

Hopefully, one (or two) of Ted Lasso season 3’s episodes will deliver a titanic clash (or two, as we keep hoping!) between Richmond and West Ham, which will put Ted and Nate at odds on the pitch. As much as we can’t wait to see if Richmond will beat Manchester City, we’re also eager to see Ted and Nate clash, from a tactical standpoint, from the dugout. Co-writer Brendan Hunt has teased that we’ll “see a bit of what’s going on at West Ham” in the next season, too (per The Hollywood Reporter (THR)). Could Nate and Rupert be at odds at the direction of the club? Time will tell.

Speaking to the BBC, Mohammed added: “I’m effectively the villain in it now, which is a funny place to find myself. The thing with Ted Lasso is the audience are possibly expecting a redemption arc for Nate, and I’d like to see one I think because that would be nice. But equally I could well imagine the writers thinking: ‘no, we’re going to turn it on its head’, because that’s what they did in season 2, playing against everyone’s expectations, so he might be the one character they don’t redeem.”

Whatever happens, Mohammed thinks a verbal showdown is on the way between Ted and Nate. “There has to be some kind of reckoning, right?” he told US Weekly. “Whether it’s a positive or negative outcome [we’ll have to see].” Speaking the Fatherly magazine, Mohammed also teased “Nate will change again”, before telling People magazine that “season 3 is certainly as much of a roller coaster for Nate”. Color us intrigued.

Away from the pitch, Ted Lasso season 3 will also need to wrap up smaller storylines. Audiences need some closure on Rebecca and Sam’s on-off relationship. The pair were no longer dating by season 2’s finale, but we imagine this isn’t the end of their romantic dalliance. Hannah Waddingham, who plays Rebecca, seems to hint that there may be more to mine, plot wise, here when speaking to Deadline.

In a separate Deadline article, Waddingham revealed how Rebecca’s personal and professional lives will be at two vastly different points when season 3 begins.

“When we see Rebecca again, she’s a boss ass b**ch,” she said. “She’s 100 percent boss ass b**ch and then some. She’s fully there because she wants to be and there’s a change in her that I think was much needed. She’s leading that group of players and wants the best for them. As far as her personal life is concerned, it’s delicious chaos as usual. That’s life, right? You never have everything sorted.”

Asked if Sam and Rebecca would rekindle their romance, Toheeb Jimoh added: “I can’t tell you anything about that! What I can say is that we do get into Sam’s love life a little bit this season and it will be very interesting for people to see how that all unfolds and where it goes. You’ll see what his relationship with Rebecca is like and what it turns into. It will be really interesting no matter what side of the fence you’re on, whether you’re a TedBecca fan or SamBecca fan. There’s going to be a really interesting resolution for all the characters.”

Speaking of relationship issues, it appears that Roy and Keeley may have hit a rough patch. Keeley rejected Roy’s efforts to take her on a much-needed vacation in season 2 episode 12 – electing to stay in the UK and work on her newly-formed PR firm. It’s unclear what the future holds for this pair but, given that they haven’t officially broken up, we imagine that they’ll make amends and maybe tie the knot.

From Ted’s perspective, it’ll be interesting to see if his panic attacks return. Sports psychologist Sharon had helped him to get to grips with them by the end of season 2, but we suspect that they’ll continue to plague him. Could she offer more counselling sessions to Ted?

We wouldn’t be surprised if Ted offered Trent Crimm a role at Richmond, either. In the season 2 finale, Trent revealed The Independent had fired him for revealing the identity of his source (i.e. Nate) who leaked Ted’s panic attacks. Ted could use Trent’s expertise in a media capacity, so why not hire him? It would mean that all of the series’ main characters are under one roof (Nate aside), which would be a fitting way to bring the curtain down on the show.

Regardless of where season 3 goes from a story perspective, Lawrence promises viewers could have worked out many of the series’ surprises from the beginning.

“There will be lots of surprises,” he told Deadline. “But anyone who says, oh, where Nate ends up in the finale is a big surprise…we felt like we were setting that up from the very first episode of last year. The clues are there. Jason and I are huge non-spoiler people, but yeah, I think some of the writing is already on the wall, hopefully.”

Lawrence’s comments have been backed up by Declan Lowney, Ted Lasso director and producer, who told Deadline that we should expect “a bunch of surprises, things you didn’t see coming, some curveballs in there”. Let’s hope that’s not hyperbole.

One thing we do know is we’ll see officially licensed Premier League kits and club logos. According to sports publication The Athletic, Apple has agreed a £500,000 (around $682,000) deal with English top flight executives to use of kits, club badges and even the Premier League trophy. Could we see AFC Richmond lift the title in a fairy tale-style series ending?

Meanwhile, AFC Richmond’s first team might take a trip to Europe as part of a team bonding session. Ted Lasso fan Kelly Melissa took to Twitter to post an image of herself with Sudeikis and Waddingham in Amsterdam, so maybe the Richmond boys are going on a European tour. According to Phil Dunster, who plays Jamie, we can expect to see a lot more soccer played in Ted Lasso season 3, too (via The Los Angeles Times). For a show based around the hugely popular sport, you can never have enough soccer-based action.

Finally, speaking to TVLine, Brendan Hunt suggested that season 3 will kick off (see what we did there?) at the beginning of a new season, rather than beginning with one already underway. “We don’t like to do the same thing twice,” Hunt explained. “In season 1, we joined the [Premier League] season in January. In season 2, we joined the season in late September. We’ve never gone from the start of a season, so perhaps that’s something we want to get to.”

Ted Lasso season 3 trailer

There’s no trailer just yet. Once one is released, we’ll update this page.

Ted Lasso season 3: is this the final season?

It depends who you ask, but it’s looking more likely by the day.

Sudeikis and Lawrence have said Ted Lasso is a trilogy, so we should prepare ourselves that this will be the final season. Waddingham has also told E! Online that Sudeikis has said he believes this will be the final installment in the show, while Mohammed isn’t sure (per Discussing Film) if a fourth season is in the offing.

Co-writer Brett Goldstein added further weight to that claim with Mr. Porter, saying: “We had a three-season arc planned. We are writing the end of that story. Whether there’ll be more after that, we’ll see, I genuinely don’t know. But I do know that the story that we were telling over three years will be complete.”

Still, never say never on future instalments. Lawrence has teased the prospect of returning for more if it’s warranted, telling Deadline there may be a way of stretching the show’s overarching narrative out for another two seasons. However, actor Phil Dunster told THR that “nobody knows about season four”, though, so don’t place your bets on another outing for Ted and his soccer crew.

What about new tales told in the Ted Lasso universe? Speaking to THR, Lawrence said: “When we started, we plotted out everybody’s beginning, middle and end of a three-season arc. This story is going to be over next year, regardless, even if the show finds another story to tell and goes on.”

Elaborating on the prospect of spin-offs, Hunt told THR: “It’s just a matter of whether or not we pick this up in some other way”. Chalk that up as a possibility, then.

Additionally, Waddingham jokingly told Entertainment Tonight that she wants Apple to force Sudeikis to continue making more seasons: “If I were Apple and Warner Bros, I’d be leaning on him [Sudeikis] like a lunatic and putting him in a corner in a little cage and giving him a notebook and a pen. It’s too beautiful.”

For their part, Warner Bros. are open to continuing the series in some guise. The studio’s Head of Television Channing Dungey told THR: “The way they pitched out the season, it would work very well should [season three] be the end. Audiences will be satisfied with how they resolve the end of the season. But there is still an opportunity and path for us to do more. We will see how everything comes together; there are a lot of moving pieces here and there’s a continued enthusiasm to keep telling these stories.”

Hopefully, we’ll get a fourth season or even a couple of one-off specials. And, honestly, we’d be down for that. We’re not ready to say goodbye to any of Ted Lasso’s characters yet, even though the show should go out on a high if season 3 is to be its last hurrah.

If it does stick around for longer, we could certainly use more of the show’s wonderful positivity. In the vein of the show’s iconic single-word phrase – “Believe” – we’re keeping faith that Ted Lasso will continue after season 3. Still, if this is the end of the line, at least we can see (and play as) Ted and Richmond in FIFA 23.

For more Ted Lasso-based content, read about and watch these six big-hearted comedies before season 3 arrives.