While it's officially only back for one run, "Ted Lasso" creators have plans for more and Apple's Eddy Cue strongly suggests there will be a fifth season on Apple TV.
Apple TV's first true hit, the comedy "Ted Lasso," was intended to finish forever after its third season. But it's been revived for a fourth, which is getting mixed but generally good reviews and Apple is hinting that the show will continue.
"Ted Lasso" star and co-creator Jason Sudeikis has publicly said that he wants two more seasons. He's even gone so far as to say that he is getting the writers back together in the hopes of a second run.
Now according to Deadline, Apple TV senior vice president Eddy Cue, is interested in more.
"I hope so, it's certainly good enough for that," he said. "So I think there's plenty of stories to go on. We'll show up. No worries."
That's as close as Apple will ever come to confirming that a show will continue. It's likely that it's an easy thing to say, though, because the probability is that the fifth and maybe sixth seasons have already been commissioned.
How Apple TV orders shows
This is far from only being what Apple does, and it is not what Apple TV has done with every series. But typically it will order two seasons of a show right at the start, and solely announce the first.
The reasons are partly economics in that a production company is making a huge investment in setting up a new series. It needs a guaranteed order to make it worthwhile.
Then, too, there is the age-old situation with television where streamers and broadcasters aim to lock-in cast and crew. It's why actors in broadcast TV shows tended to have six- or seven-year contracts.
Every actor and every above-the-line crew member — so producers, writers, and directors — get this lock-in if the companies can manage it. Without it, if a show's first season is a huge hit, everyone involved would negotiate for much higher fees.
So for all sides, there is a financial benefit to backing at least a two-season run. Apple TV, like every other broadcaster or streamer, though, then makes the most of this for publicity purposes.
No streamer or broadcaster will ever say straight away that it has ordered two seasons. It might wait until the eve of the first one's debut so that it can say it's so good that it's been renewed even before it airs.
Or it can simply wait until after the first season ends and then announce that due to public demand, it's coming back. Either way, the streamer gets news coverage and the show gets some publicity.
This is how it routinely works so in the case of "Ted Lasso," it was always going to be a fair bet that this new fourth season would be followed by at least a fifth. But then back in 2025, Deadline also reported that the cast and crew had signed a new three-year contract with Apple.
All of which presumably makes Tim Cook happy. Right from the end of the original three-season run, he was saying he hoped that there would be a fourth some day.
