"Maybe this is the Taylor Swift effect," Kansas City Current co-owner Angie Long said at CPKC Stadium last month. She's not wrong to wonder. Ted Lasso's fourth season opens with AFC Richmond's staff flying to Kansas City specifically to watch a Current match — and the show's entire new arc, a newly created women's team, flows directly from what they see there.
The fictional club is inspired by a very real one. Producers from the Apple TV show approached the Longs in April 2025 and built the season's premise around what Kansas City has actually built. Jason Sudeikis, who plays Lasso, has been to multiple Current games and is, as Angie Long puts it, "a friend of the team." This wasn't a branding deal dressed up as storytelling. The cast spent three weeks filming in the city, logged an 11-hour day at CPKC Stadium in July, and even flew on the Longs' real-life private plane during the shoot.
What the Current actually represent
The reason Ted Lasso's writers chose Kansas City isn't accidental — it's the NWSL's clearest proof that this model works. Controlling owners Angie and Chris Long funded and built CPKC Stadium from scratch, the first stadium purpose-built for an NWSL club. It opened in 2024. Every league match since has sold out at 11,500 fans. The club is planning an expansion to 18,000 seats, and a billion-dollar riverfront neighborhood is being developed around a women's soccer stadium. That's not a feel-good footnote — that's a land use decision tied to a women's sports franchise.
The show mirrors this trajectory honestly. Rebecca Welton, the fictional AFC Richmond owner played by Hannah Waddingham, is initially rattled after learning a rival women's team has folded due to financial troubles. Her doubts are only erased by watching the Current game live — the sellout crowd, the atmosphere, two-time NWSL MVP Temwa Chawinga scoring. The scene works because the reality it's drawing from actually works.
Jeremy Swift, who plays Leslie Higgins, cut to what the season is really trying to say: "What this season goes to address is to try and support women's football financially and with integrity. Because there's a lot of lip service given to it. It's like, it's exciting, it's new. But it needs backing."
Why this matters beyond the cameo
The NWSL is entering its 13th season with 16 teams — double its original number. The league's third attempt at professional women's soccer in the US is the first to survive a fourth season, which it did back in 2016. Players who once earned $6,000 a year are now playing for clubs valued in the hundreds of millions. The growth is real, but it's still fragile enough that a show with 16.9 billion minutes streamed in 2023 and 13 Primetime Emmy wins can move the needle in a way no marketing budget easily replicates.
The timing adds another layer. The Women's World Cup comes to the US in 2031. The Olympics are on the horizon. The NWSL is actively trying to scale beyond its devoted core fan base, and that requires reaching people who've never watched a game. A fictional English men's club going through the motions of building a women's team — while the audience watches real NWSL footage cut into the episode — is a more effective advertisement than most leagues manage in a full season.
- CPKC Stadium opened in 2024 as the first purpose-built NWSL venue
- Every Current home match since opening has sold out at 11,500 capacity
- Expansion to 18,000 seats is planned
- Temwa Chawinga, two-time reigning NWSL MVP and Golden Boot winner, appears in the episode scoring for the Current
- Ted Lasso was the most-streamed US original show in 2023 with 16.9 billion minutes streamed
Chris Long hasn't seen the rest of season four yet, but he's watching for the parts that hit closest to home: "The trials and tribulations on day one with the squad. What does that mean facilities wise? What does that mean in the community? How do you fill the stands?" Those are exactly the questions Kansas City has spent five years answering.
