JUNO TEMPLE HARDLY let the question breathe before answering it. It was posed to her, Emmy winner Hannah Waddingham and Jeremy Swift, who star in the hit Apple TV show "Ted Lasso" -- Temple as model-turned-businesswoman Keeley Jones, Waddingham as fictional AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Welton and Swift as director of communications and football operations Leslie Higgins. Why does women's football work in "Ted Lasso" at this moment?
"Why wouldn't it?" Temple said. She beat Waddingham to it."Yeah, why wouldn't it?" Waddingham jumped in. "Why wouldn't it?"Women's soccer in the United States and around the world has never been so popular. According to a report by Nielsen in 2025, women's soccer is set to become one of the world's top five sports by 2030 with a global fan base of 800 million. In the NWSL, the growth has been constant since it was established in 2013 with eight teams. It had 16 teams during the 2026 season with two more to be added by 2028. The entry fee for a franchise has skyrocketed from $2 million in 2021 to $205 million in 2026.
According to veteran Gotham FC midfielder Meredith Speck, the league is unrecognizable from where it was when she joined the league in 2016. Speck was excited but nervous about the show's portrayal of women's soccer. After watching the first two episodes, she noticed the show was accurate in its depiction, with jokes that felt "very close to home." There was the scene when Lasso sees the women's locker room for the first time and notices just one showerhead, highlighting the differences between men's and women's facilities.
Source: ESPN Soccer · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing