Coach Lasso and the embodiment of American exceptionalism: NBC Sports promotion of English Premier League football as the foreign sport

This study considers the campaign of American broadcast network NBC to cultivate a US-based audience for the English Premier League (EPL) after purchasing broadcast rights in 2013. This involved the creation and introduction of a fictional character, American football coach Ted Lasso, who initially came to England to manage a soccer team and later to provide broadcast commentary. A series of videos chronicling the coach’s antics, soccer and cultural illiteracy, immense inexperience, and limited perspective, which debuted shortly before the network’s inaugural coverage began, garnered considerable attention. A thematic analysis indicated that the campaign portrayed Ted Lasso as an unknowing fool and cavalier clown accompanied by a knowledgeable sidekick, anchored his perspective on American football exclusively, and projected soccer as a foreign, feminine and youth sport. NBC Sports’ promotional campaign effectively combined comedic elements like farce and parody to critique and confront American exceptionalism and US historical indifference to soccer.