It was easy to wonder why Ted Lasso , seemingly a series with a conclusive finale, would return for a fourth season where everything was dramatically reshuffled, and half the cast left. Well, here’s the reason why.

Ted Lasso season 4 just put up 296.6 million minutes watched in just August 4-5 alone. For context, that Nielsen number means it is the biggest Apple TV premiere of all time , higher than the first three Ted Lasso seasons, higher than Severance and Pluribus and every other buzzy show the service has produced, and there are many.

Ted Lasso was one of Apple TV’s first true breakout series back in 2020, when Ted became a pop culture figure rather quickly as the hyper-positive coach played by Jason Sudeikis. Season 2 was solid, but season 3 represented some level of decline, most would agree. Now, season 4 seems to be landing somewhere in the middle, but clearly it has attracted audiences who want to see Lasso’s next era, which is coaching a women’s team for the first time.

That concept has seen the departure of nearly the entire men’s team cast minus Brett Goldstein, and a new slate of women has taken their spot. The show retained its biggest figures: Ted, Hannah Waddingham’s Rebecca, Juno Temple’s Keeley, Brendan Hunt’s Coach Beard and Jeremy Swift’s Leslie. So, even with all the player departures, the core cast remains, and that’s enough to justify the show’s continued existence. Well, I suppose it would be the viewership that justifies that, indicating enormous audience interest in Ted and the gang.

Ted Lasso has not been renewed for a fifth season yet, but barring some sort of creative differences disaster, with these numbers, it’s hard to imagine we won’t see one. Apple TV executive Eddy Cue told Screenrant the following:

“I hope so,” Cue said about Season 5. “It’s certainly good enough for that. So I think there’s plenty of stories to go on. We’ll show up. No worries.”

The core cast reportedly has a new three-year deal, which could mean three more seasons. As for this one, Ted Lasso season 4 has only aired two episodes out of 10 (shorter than the last two 12-episode seasons) and will end on October 7, 2026. It was around 3.5 years between seasons 3 and 4, though for most of that it was unclear if the show was planning to return at all. It should be shorter from here. The gap between seasons 1 and 2, for instance, was actually less than a year. But to get started, Ted Lasso would need a green light for season 5. It seems destined to get one.

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