In hindsight, it’s hard to imagine anyone else being considered for the NBC advertisement that led to the inception of the character Ted Lasso. The coach has become a staple in Jason Sudeikis’ career, it led to one of the best shows on Apple TV+, and it helped define the last five years of comedy. However, originally the ad that led to all this was offered to celebrities like Chris Pratt and John Oliver first. So, in a way, we have the Parks and Rec actor and Last Week Tonight host to thank for Ted Lasso.
During Jeremy Egner's interviews for Believe: The Untold Story Behind Ted Lasso, The Show That Kicked Its Way Into Our Hearts, he spoke with the NBC employees tasked with creating an ad for the Premiere League. They were looking for a way to introduce soccer to an American audience, and let’s just say that Jason Sudeikis wasn’t the first person on their mind, as John Miller, the then chief marking officer at NBC Sports, said:
We originally went after John Oliver, who was then at The Daily Show, and he was sort of intrigued. It would have taken a different tack: a Brit helps explain the game in a fun way. But at that time, Jon Stewart was going to direct a film and so all of a sudden, John Oliver is going to take over The Daily Show all summer long. So, he was out.
You know, I could totally see this. NBC needed a way to sell soccer to Americans. John Oliver is a beloved British personality who is known for explaining the news in a funny and informative way (watch Last Week Tonight with a Max subscription, and that will be made abundantly clear). To mix my sports metaphors, it felt like a slam dunk. However, schedules got in the way.
So, since the Parks and Rec cast was killing it on NBC around that time and Chris Pratt’s star was rising, they decided to reach out to him. Having an Andy Dwyer-like bit about him learning the rules of football, but getting it confused with American football, again, feels like a slam dunk.
However, Pratt’s film career was blasting off, and he “wasn’t interested,” as Miller said:
Then we went to Chris Pratt, because we thought that he would be sort of interesting and fun. And he's a guy from Parks and Recreation, an NBC connection. So we asked him but he was in the middle of Jurassic [World] and Guardians of the Galaxy and going off on a film career, and wasn't interested.
He then explained that they considered folks like Ricky Gervais and Seth Meyers too. However they didn’t think Gervais would work out, and at the time, Meyers “was not quite as big as [they] wanted then.”
Finally, they were introduced to the man who would end up taking the job, Jason Sudeikis. Explaining how that ended up happening, Bill Bergofin, who is cited in the book as “the then newish head of marketing for NBC Sports,” said:
So we're all kind of scratching our heads. We had a talent wrangler and they said, 'You know, Jason Sudeikis, I'm not sure he's a soccer fan, but he's coming off SNL and I don't believe he has any projects lined up.'
Now, that was the real slam dunk!
Eventually, the ad came out in the summer of 2013, on the heels of his final season on Saturday Night Live. He was recognizable, but not the star he is today, and the guys were interested because he’d played a coach character on SNL.
Well, that proved to be a great decision for a lot of reasons.
First of all, at the time of this writing, the YouTube video for this commercial has over 22 million views.
Secondly, and most importantly, it was how the Apple TV+ show was created. Thanks to this NBC ad, we eventually got the show that became a phenomenon, won a whole bunch of Emmys, introduced us all to the wildly talented Ted Lasso cast – which included actors like Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein and Phil Dunster – and warmed our hearts.
That wouldn’t have happened if John Oliver or Chris Pratt said yes.
So, everybody say thank you to them for saying no and these NBC employees for being down for the idea to hire Jason Sudeikis when you watch or re-watch Ted Lasso with your Apple TV+ subscription. Without all this happening, we probably never would have been able to say “We’re Richmond ‘til we die,” because AFC Richmond probably wouldn’t have existed.
