The (Improbable) History of Ted Lasso ⚽️

I doubt any of the showrunners from Ted Lasso read this newsletter, and I know it’s too late to do anything about it, but I have a request for season 4 of the show:

I recently stumbled upon an album from a group called The New Basement Tapes. They’re described as a musical “supergroup,” led by Marcus Mumford (of Mumford and Sons), who discovered unreleased Bob Dylan lyrics from 1967 and recorded a single album with them in 2014.

My favorite song from the album is called Kansas City, and even though it was written almost 60 years ago, it feels like it was made for this show. Check it out for yourself.

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: The (Improbable) History of Ted Lasso

📉 Biggest Loser: What Are NFL Players Wearing Around Their Necks?

🏆 Winner’s Circle: How the Packers Make $1.5M From One Practice

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Jason Sudeikis makes $1 million for every episode of Ted Lasso, but the show wasn’t even his idea.

Spitballing: Back in 2001, Brendan Hunt was working for an improv comedy club in Amsterdam and quickly fell in love with European football.

Jason Sudeikis was also a part of the club and loved talking football with Hunt; the only issue was that Sudeikis knew nothing about soccer. In fact, he knew so little that the two comedians bought a PlayStation and played FIFA together before and after every show just so Sudeikis could learn the game. Hunt then began using American comparisons for European teams and players to help Sudeikis understand what was actually going on.

And unbeknownst to both guys, the character Ted Lasso was born.

Good Things Come To Those Who Wait: Now, this story takes a pause for about 10 years until Sudeikis left SNL in 2013. It was in this same year that NBC paid $250 million for US broadcasting rights to the Premier League, but there was a major issue:

Americans knew nothing about soccer.

So the network approached a familiar and recognizable face in Sudeikis and pitched him on a few different sketch and character ideas, one of which included a yelling and screaming drill-sergeant type of character similar to the ones he had played on SNL.

But Sudeikis countered that idea with the Ted Lasso character he had helped develop a decade prior; an ignorant yet lovable American who’s way in over his head.

But when NBC pitched the idea to the Premier League clubs, every single one declined… except for Tottenham.

Instant Hit: Now, as we all know, the ad quickly became a cult classic, garnering over 28 million organic views for NBC, but the character was retired after the network no longer had any use for it in TV ad spots.

But Sudeikis didn’t forget the character, and in 2017 he partnered with Brendan Hunt and ‘Scrubs’ creator Bill Lawrence to write Ted Lasso into a show. The three writers shopped the show around for years without much success, but eventually, Apple TV picked it up, and it quickly became the platform’s most-watched season premiere ever (a record that was quickly broken by the second season’s premiere).

That’s why, in the show’s third season, Sudeikis made a reported $1 million per episode, with other actors earning as much as $150K per episode. But even more impressively, the show has struck six-figure licensing deals with major brands like:

And I’m not even sure if they were the most successful guys from that group (scroll back up and look at that improv group again, notice anyone else familiar?)

What are these things around NFL players’ necks?

It’s actually a medical-grade device that claims to “protect an athlete’s brain in a way that no other product can”

Do they actually work?

In The Wild: To answer that, we have to go back to 2010, when an inventor and retired doctor named David Smith discovered what he believed to be the best example for reducing brain damage: a woodpecker.

As Dr. Smith argues, the reason woodpeckers are able to bang their heads against trees all day without going brain-dead is because of a special neck muscle that contracts to trap blood in their brains while they peck at trees.

And since there’s more blood in the woodpecker’s head, there’s less room for their brain to slosh around, therefore reducing the potential for brain injuries. Which led Dr. Smith to wonder why he couldn’t do the same thing for humans.

Unofficially Official: So, after a decade of testing on small animals and then high schoolers, Dr. Smith finally got his Q-Collar approved for sale as a medical device by the F.D.A in 2021.

There’s just one problem: no one knows if this thing actually works.

Because even though the company claims that its device might limit damage to brain tissue by trapping blood in a player’s head, most of these claims come from company-funded studies.

Weak Foundation: In fact, if you go all the way back to Dr. Smith’s original claim about woodpeckers, you might be shocked to find out that most scientists don’t even agree with his theory about trapping blood in the bird’s head. Instead, the general consensus is that woodpeckers benefit much more from their strong beaks and spongy skulls. Not to mention, when the brains of dead woodpeckers have been studied, they actually do show signs of damage.

Still, that hasn’t stopped Q-Collar from taking over across the NFL and dozens of other sports with the promise of helping improve player safety.

And even though the product’s founders will argue that players have nothing to lose by trying the Q-Collar, some scientists are now saying that by promising players protection that might not exist, the Q-Collar could actually be putting players at a greater risk of getting hurt.

The Green Bay Packers make over $1.5 million dollars every year from a single practice, but how is that even possible?

It’s become common for NFL teams to open up their practices to fans. Attendance is usually free and held on practice fields that don’t hold more than a few thousand people. In fact, when teams like the Chicago Bears have tried to open up their actual stadium to allow fans to watch them practice, they couldn’t even fill up the one section.

But the same can’t be said for America’s smallest market team…

Bucket List: For most football fans, the one thing at the top of their bucket list is watching a game in Lambeau Field. It’s why the season ticket waitlist for the Packers is over 150,000 people and 50 years long, and why last year Lambeau Field ranked as the 7th most expensive stadium to attend in the entire NFL.

So, in order to give more fans a chance to experience football in Green Bay at an affordable price, starting in 2001, the team has opened up their stadium for one practice every summer.

Money Maker: This event, called Packers Family Night, has sold out over a dozen times in its 25-year history, and last year nearly 60,000 fans showed up to watch a glorified practice.

Now, like every year, the Packers only charge $10 per person to get in and parking is only another $5, with all of those proceeds being donated to charity. Still, this means that before anyone has even stepped foot inside the stadium, the team has still collected over $700,000.

But then when you consider concession revenue with an average per-fan spend of $14.25, that’s another $843,000 the team is making off a 2.5-hour practice and some fireworks for a total of over $1.53 million.

Now this is America’s team.

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👋🏻 Happy Friday!

For those who couldn’t find the hidden celebrity from our first story, here he is: Jordan Peele.

That’s a lot of talent in one improv group.