What Ted Lasso teaches us about strategic messaging and narrative control

*This post was originally published March 2024.

What if we told you that Apple TV’s Ted Lasso makes for a great lesson in understanding propaganda?

Allow us to explain.

The flood of information in today’s media age makes it extremely difficult to tell fact from fallacy. There is an overabundance of messages out there with unseen, and known characters spreading information to suit their needs. 

So many platforms and so many actors and when war, politics, government agendas, or other priorities get mixed in, things become hard to unravel. 

When governments get involved, their priority supersedes anything else. It doesn’t matter if their spin puts another group in a negative light either, it’s all about promotion. This is by definition, propaganda. 

But why Ted Lasso?

After all, it’s a hilarious show about a goofy football (American) coach, guiding football (the original football, or soccer) players and their club, AFC Richmodn, through their profession. It has a whole whack of wholesome messages and is quite funny in places. We definitely enjoy the show and if you haven’t seen it, check it out. 

When Ted Lasso first aired, it was because of a real problem Apple TV faced: How do you teach people about the rules of football and get them to love it? The company had recently signed on to be the streaming service for America’s Major League Soccer (MLS) and the investment (more on that later) required buy-in from Americans who perhaps were not as savvy or knowledgeable about the game and its rules. 

The show had all the right pieces to gain a huge following. It was super successful, hitting a range of noble ideas such as teamwork, humble leadership, and building team unity. While viewers followed the ups and downs of AFC Richmond and its loveable characters, they gained a greater understanding of the positive aspects of the game. In each episode you learn something new about the sport and by the end of the last season, you’d pretty much be able to understand a live game while watching.  

There was one aspect of the TV show, however, that did not receive much attention. Ignored issues included hooliganism, racism, and homophobia (Cleland, 2014, 2018; Cleland & Cashmore, 2016, Football Hooliganism – All You Need to Know, n.d.). 

Apple TV’s purposeful avoidance of these problems wasn’t an accident. 

A few things we will be looking at in this blog post: 

• This is an exercise in comparison and understanding, a critique and review of a television series where its parent company has stakes in a high growth market. 

• We use Ted Lasso to shape understanding of propaganda from a non-war/non-political perspective. When we bring politics and war into the equation, the waters get muddied with our own bias. 

• By the end of this review the goal is for readers to have a better understanding of what propaganda is, thereby empowering them to identify the strategy in other high stakes situations.

A quick note: We are not disparaging Apple in any way, just critiquing and reviewing a television show, and using it to help draw comparisons of propaganda tactics. Our opinions are our own and are couched in communication theories and experience.

As the man likes to say, “Let’s get into it.”

Using television to sell a new product is nothing new. 

This marketing strategy has been implemented many times over the years by entertainment corporations. Let’s use He-Man and the Masters of the Universe as just one example. The show was created to give kids a reason to buy toys, so the toy company designed a series that would get the kids excited about the action figures. 

This is a strategy about getting people to love something by creating memorable stories and beloved characters for a target audience. 

For Apple TV it was a no-brainer to employ the same tactic, and for good reason, the company made an extremely large investment in MLS streaming, paying out a $2.5 billion 10-year investment for exclusive broadcast rights to stream football games. Forbes magazine suggests this was a winning move: 

“It’s the one and only traditional sports league that attracts the same demographics as streamers, including Gen Z males.”

Apple TV has put in the time, and copious amounts of cash to see its investment turn into profits.

To do that effectively, some of the issues that come with the sport had to be ignored or downplayed. Spotlighting problems in a sport you’re trying to promote is bad for business. The marketing funnel likely forecast a certain percentage of Ted Lasso viewers would gain enough interest to stream football games. We don’t know what Apple’s goal and marketing funnel looked like, but positive stories generally equates to positive revenues.

We’re familiar with propaganda being used as a strategy to manipulate the masses in wartime, specifically in the two world wars as referenced by a 1997 article by Douglas Walton called What Is Propaganda, and What Exactly Is Wrong with It (p. 385, 1997). The tactic has also been used countless times to support governments’ end goals, to make one side look better than the other while also downplaying issues on your own side.

For now, the basic idea of propaganda is this: a propagandist’s message and their intention are two different things. With Apple TV that certainly hits the mark. Warren Taylor explains this idea rather well in a 1942 article called What is Propaganda, and is actually apropos to this discussion: 

“The propagandist is a good showman. His method, but not his motive, is to entertain,” (pp. 557-558, 1942). 

“Football is life!” 

Ted Lasso is so full of positive messages, skipping past some of the more nefarious sides of football, that people ate it up. The company and writers did an effective job of soft-serving the real problems, making them emotionally justifiable to be palatable and wholesome for viewers. 

For example, in season two, episode six, The Signal, one football fan in a pub suggests he’d break a chair if AFC Richmond makes a goal. The owner gives him a severe look and he eventually says, “I’ll channel my raging enthusiasm in ways to help my community.” This is positive and brings good vibes all around but it’s not really what happens with football. It’s the closest example to Hooliganism that we could find in the show, and the gangs that come from the game.

There is another incident in the show that suggests there may be some type of hooligans around; in season two episode nine, Beard After Hours, there is a moment when a character, Coach Beard, is faced with drunken fans after a game that he nearly gets the you-know-what beaten out of him. 

Getting into the weeds of football hooligans is counterproductive to Apple TV’s aims, just as it would be disadvantageous for a government to identify its own issues when wanting its citizens to support a political agenda of an “enemy” nation. 

There are other issues associated with football; racism, sexism, and homophobia (Cleland, 2014, 2018; Cleland & Cashmore, 2016) that continue to be problematic for its image. Ted Lasso writers do tackle the issue through positive messaging. In season three, episode seven, The Strings that Bind Us, one of the main characters, Sam Obisanya is a Nigerian footballer on AFC Richmond, who also owns a restaurant. He challenges a political leader who is against helping refugees trying to get into the country. He calls her out on Twitter which results in his establishment being broken into and graffitied with the words, “Shut up and dribble”.

A side note: The graffiti is the verbatim statement that Fox journalist, Laura Ingraham, delivered to LeBron James’s on Twitter in response to his opinion of former President Donald Trump (Sullivan, 2018).

Obisanya now has a problem but his father and teammates come to his aid without question. This is good and positive as it challenges the status quo and allows viewers to think critically about the issue from a safe space. What it isn’t pointing out, is the level of racism non-Caucasian players face on and off the pitch. Indeed, Cleland’s 2013 article states, “the prominence of racist discourse on fan message boards suggests that this is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future.” For Apple TV, talking about the bad stuff isn’t good for getting bookoo bucks. 

This is the same tactic used by governments driving a propaganda campaign. Warren Taylor states that propaganda aims to evade the issue at hand or generalize and compromise on a different problem. 

Adding to this idea is the question of ethics related to withholding certain important pieces of a problem (Walton, p. 385, 1997). Apple is purposely avoiding the scope of the problem as it is too complex and troubling to delve into and would require some awkward explanations. It’s more lucrative for the company to write about team spirit and a happy conclusion because the reality is darker, which is bad for streaming. 

Ted Lasso also takes on homophobia in season three, episode nine in La Locker Room Aux Folles. Written in the show’s comedic way that includes humour, conflict, and a fruitful conclusion with positive reinforcement, the show touches on the problem but deflects from bigger problems around homophobia in football. 

According to Cleland (2018), there are very few footballers who are openly gay. Some of that can be attributed to a loud minority of anti-gay football fans, and some of it due to football organizations themselves. Cleland suggests football clubs could facilitate more discussions around homosexuality (2018) to create an inclusive environment. The La Locker Room Aux Folles episode is a bit more in line with what researchers are finding, that there is more openness and willingness to talk about sexual identities, but Cleland states there is still work to be done. He points out that in 2010 a Swedish TV channel took down an online article about Anton Hysén coming out as gay due to overwhelmingly hateful comments. 

So, Apple does tackle a potentially controversial issue, but it’s also ignoring antagonism that LGBTQ+ players likely face from fans. Perhaps, as Walton suggests, the goal is to appeal to the masses with a focus on common sense (P. 386, 1997), which rings true for the writing. Any time there is an issue, there’s a “common sense” solution to the problem that is of a noble nature. There is a moment in the episode when one of the characters, Colin Hughes (Billy Harris) comes out as gay to his AFC Richmond team and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Life is not so simple, even if we wish it would be.

We need to highlight the media and its role in propaganda. 

In war propaganda, media was and still is considered vital in creating behavioural change across a large population. During the First World War, George Creel’s Committee on Public Information used mainstream media to incredible levels, reaching every single household in America. These tactics were first used in the First World War and then fine-tuned in the Second World War. 

Confirming the importance of media was Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, who wrote a book called Manufacturing consent: the political economy of the mass media (2002) (get it here). They proposed an idea called the “propaganda model”, in which the media is witting and unwitting in its role over influencing the public to support a government’s political agenda. Ted Lasso isn’t political, but Apple is using its own media influence to promote football while ignoring the negative aspects of the sport, a strategy that any propagandist would use to support its goals. 

There is another moment when the show creates an almost spiritual feeling around football to advocate for the fans. It was about the subject of a European “super league” and it’s thrown out as contemptible by the writers. 

In reality, the creation of a super league is a continuing discussion amongst the top European clubs and one can see why. There’s demand for the game, people would pay good money to watch the games and profits would increase. Critics point out that this is something fans are against. 

In Lasso’s season three, episode 10, International Break, there is a moment where the fictional owner of AFC Richmond, Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), criticises other elite football club owners as the plan this super league. She makes an impassioned speech, accompanied by some truly inspirational music and background video, and forces the owners to realize that football is a game that hits the hearts of fans. She questions their need for more money, criticising them for not being happy with their riches, shaming their greed. Inspired by her comments, the owners agree to turn down the plan. But the super league could become a reality despite pushback from fans (Rachini, 2023). 

Clearly for a business, it doesn’t really matter how much money is made, the more the better. So, the story says one thing, but the truth is different. A super league is still possible and fans will likely fork out the extra money to watch these elite clubs, because after all, “Football is life!” Apple’s take on this is to celebrate the beautiful game and play to the viewer’s emotions while ignoring the reality of revenues.

Government propaganda tends to play to the emotions of the masses, generating a passion and love for a different agenda. Taylor (1942) and Walton (1997) suggest it is a key part of a propagandist’s strategy. 

If we look at Apple’s goals, if the company can charge more for streaming to increase profits, it will, and so will football clubs, and in reality, if a super league came about for MLS, Apple TV would be there to reap the rewards. 

If you really want to understand the motivation of an organization, follow the money.

Even in wartime propaganda, money tends to be an influential factor. 

Recognize that companies are mostly motivated by profits. It’s the nature of their existence, and something Apple is very proficient at. 

Apple has invested heavily to support its MLS streaming service. It is reported to have paid half a million pounds for broadcast rights to Premier League’s archive footage for the Ted Lasso show, and of course there is the $2.5 billion MLS streaming rights. 

Supporting its end goals, Apple also brokered a profit-sharing deal between Messi and MLS. With one of the greatest footballers playing in MLS, more tickets get sold and more people sign up for MLS subscriptions on Apple TV. The strategies are working, viewership’s growing to a million subscribers during big games (McCaskill, 2023). This is great for Apple, so acknowledging negative stories and issues around football do not have a place in Apple’s business plans. 

The money trail flows to NBC, a distributor of Ted Lasso, which paid $2.7 billion for six years to hold onto Premier League broadcast rights (Associated Press, 2021). Warner Bros. is another distributor of the show, and the company also has a piece of the Premier League broadcast pie (Kanter, 2023). It’s just as important for NBC and Warner Bros. to see Ted Lasso succeed because of the direct path for MLS viewers from Apple TV to NBC’s and Warner Bros’s. broadcast. If we were Apple, we’d be working closely with NBC to share commentary around games. To their benefit, NBC and Apple TV are also media companies, able to shape the narrative around the sport.

There is usually an ulterior motive to a propaganda campaign. For Apple TV it’s marketing to support business goals, and for governments or political actions, it’s about their own interests and the marketing is brilliant. 

These same strategies are used in propaganda; influence a large audience to create behavioural change by playing to people’s emotions while ignoring or downplaying the issues.

When we read or hear political arguments, or messages from countries at war, we take a critical look at what’s being said. We look for what messages are most important to the sender. If they’re playing to my emotions, and if there’s a push for a certain sentiment then more often than not, the sender’s organizational goal is different from the message. It’s important to keep that in the back of one’s mind.

We really do enjoy the Ted Lasso television show and even quote many of its memorable lines. Ted Lasso’s message is uplifting and positive, appealing to viewers’ positive ideals and guiding them to a pre-designed conclusion. To do this well, writers ignore or downplay unsavoury aspects of the sport. It’s not like they don’t know what’s happening in football, they’re just controlling the message to better suit business goals. Propaganda is no different. 

So, when you hear discussion about something from an agency, and the message seems simple and your emotions are being raised, remember, there’s usually an ulterior motive coming from the sender and it’s important to be aware of that. 

Disclaimer: Ted Lasso images or video are used in accordance with the Fair Use and Fair Dealings Acts of America and Canada. This is not a disparagement of Apple or its products, but as a means of review and critique.

Image credits: Ted Lasso image from Apple TV. Puzzle image from Adobe Stock photos.

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