How and why Wichita State? Explaining Shocker football’s peculiar role in ‘Ted Lasso’
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Jason Sudeikis, who grew up in Overland Park, created and stars in the acclaimed Apple TV+ series “Ted Lasso.”
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Wichita State football is back and it even has a national championship to celebrate.
At least that’s the case in the fictional world of “Ted Lasso,” a comedy series starring Jason Sudeikis that premiered August 14 on Apple TV+.
The premise of the show is simple: an American football coach wins a Division II national championship and is hired to coach a top-flight English soccer team, despite having no prior experience with soccer. That Division II football program? Wichita State.
The unlikely connection has put WSU in the spotlight, as the critically-acclaimed show has already been renewed for a second season and has reportedly been the top show on Apple’s streaming platform. The show’s promotional video on YouTube, which briefly features WSU’s logo on screen, has already racked up more than 13 million views.
On Thursday, the official Ted Lasso Twitter account quote tweeted Wichita State’s GoShockers account and wrote, “You bet I believe in this team. Go shock’em fellas!” ahead of the Shockers’ NCAA Tournament basketball game on Thursday against Drake.
“I think it’s a great way to show a fun side and get some positive exposure and some enjoyable exposure, especially during a time when nobody is getting exposure,” WSU athletic director Darron Boatright said.
Stream the first five minutes of the first episode and you can watch Sudeikis, who plays the titular character, dance around in Shocker gear, surrounded by football players wearing WSU uniforms, and ESPN SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt talk about WSU winning “its first-ever national title.”
That begs the question — why, of all schools, Wichita State? And how did this pairing happen? Well, it turns out Shocker fans can thank Sudeikis, the famous comedian from Overland Park, and his Kansas roots.
“When I asked why us, the answer they gave me was that Jason Sudeikis is from Kansas and it was his personal preference to associate with a school from the state,” said Tami Cutler, WSU’s associate athletic director for strategic communications.
It was never made clear to WSU why it was the Kansas school selected, but Cutler said she was the point of contact for WSU when Warner Bros., the production company for the show, reached out last August seeking permission to use WSU’s logo and reference the school in two episodes.
Through its licensing partner, WSU gave the show its blessing and was paid “the standard rate” for royalties. Cutler declined to discuss the specific amount of money WSU was paid, but said Warner Bros. was “easy to deal with” and the process was so short that she had actually forgotten about it until she started seeing the promo video leading up to the release.
“I remember my first question to them was, ‘You do know that we don’t have a football team?’” said Cutler laughing, referencing the WSU football program that has been defunct since 1986. “They said they knew, so I was just making sure.”
There are no references to the city of Wichita itself — although there is a “We’re not in Kansas anymore!” — and don’t expect many more WSU references past the five-minute mark of the first episode (a new episode is available each Friday). But Shocker fans should get a kick out of the 52 straight seconds that WSU’s logo appears on the screen in the opening of Episode 1.
It starts with Van Pelt during a mock SportsCenter segment issuing the breaking news that Lasso has been named manager of AFC Richmond, an English soccer team. As Van Pelt talks, the Wu Shock logo is prominently displayed in the background in the mug shot of Lasso, who is wearing a black sweater with the logo on his chest.
“Of course, recently it was coach Lasso leading the Division II Wichita State Shockers to their first-ever national title in American football,” Van Pelt says. “He took the Shockers from a garbage program all the way to the promised land in his very first season as head coach.
“But for a lot of us, that’s not how Ted Lasso found his way into our hearts and certainly not in our living rooms. For me, it will always be Ted celebrating a moment of joy with his team in a way that you really have to see to understand. And even when you see it, I don’t necessarily know understanding is what we’re doing.”
For the next 30 seconds, Sudeikis can be seen comically dancing in a locker-room celebration that is full of WSU apparel.
The coach is wearing a black sweater with a Wu Shock on his chest, complete with a white visor with the university logo. The football players are wearing yellow-and-white Under Armour uniforms, a detail that Boatright particularly appreciated given the school’s contract with the apparel company. The players wore yellow pants, white jerseys with a black Shockers printed across the chest and yellow helmets with the university logo on the side.
Apple TV+ subscriptions begin at $4.99 per month and include the option for a free seven-day trial.
This story was originally published August 24, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
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