Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas spent Election Day talking soccer instead of ballots. One day before “Ted Lasso” returned to Apple TV+ for its fourth season, Lucas sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss the show’s deep ties to his city, joking that constituents were more curious about his interview than about the roughly $1.7 billion in bonds and housing funds on that day’s local ballot.
The season premiere, titled “Home” and directed by Declan Lowney from a script by co-showrunner Joe Kelly, unfolds almost entirely in Kansas City before Ted Lasso and his staff head back across the Atlantic. Creator and star Jason Sudeikis, a Kansas City native, said sending Rebecca, Keeley and Higgins through his hometown for 72 hours carried personal weight. He described watching the trio eat barbecue and stroll the Country Club Plaza as a chance to see fictional characters move through a real, familiar place.
Production spent last summer filming across the metro, with scenes shot in Blue Springs, Lee’s Summit and at Gates Bar-B-Q. In Blue Springs, resident Nathan Doering said a neighbor’s house was chosen for filming and the crew rented his garage for the shoot. The Kansas City Current, the National Women’s Soccer League team that plays at CPKC Stadium, also appears in the episode; the club’s vice president of communications, Dani Welniak, said most of the extras in that scene came from the team’s own staff. CPKC, the first stadium built specifically for women’s sports, hosted a watch party for the premiere and earlier served as the site of a cast press conference and fan night featuring Sudeikis, Juno Temple, Brendan Hunt, Jeremy Swift and Abbie Hern.
The new season picks up with Ted returning to AFC Richmond to coach a second-division women’s team, a shift from the Premier League storylines of the first three seasons. Apple has not announced whether returning characters such as Nate or Jamie Tartt will factor into the ten-episode run. New episodes release weekly on Apple TV+.
