The new season of Ted Lasso plays the indignities of women’s sport for laughs, but they’re grounded in reality.

Before I unleash, I should probably clarify: I love Ted Lasso.

After three years, the beloved comedy about an American football coach taking charge of an English football team has returned to Apple TV. Only this time, AFC Richmond is building a women’s team.

It’s joyous, hilarious, gloriously ridiculous and absolutely infuriating, because so many of the “jokes” about women’s sport are true.

The first time I threw something was at the TV was when Ted, the newly appointed women’s coach, was shown the team’s new changing room. It’s a cramped youth academy space, with “women’s locker room” taped over the sign. There are cleaning supplies in the corner. One shower. One toilet. And, of course, a urinal.

But the changing room is more than somewhere to exercise the fundamental human right to pee. It’s the beating heart of a team, where culture, trust and belonging are built. And what does that space tell these women? Be grateful for what you’ve got. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t ask for more. Don’t push. Don’t take up space. Don’t be difficult. “We’re just happy to be here.” Fuck that.

The writers have done their homework. The indignities may be played for laughs, but they’re grounded in the reality of women’s sport. 

The second time I threw something was during a press conference. Instead of asking about the women, journalists fire question after question at Ted about the men’s team.

It’s funny because it’s painfully familiar. In Aotearoa, just 26% of sports news coverage in 2025 was about women’s sport. Without the women’s rugby and cricket World Cups, it would have been 23%. During last year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup, 56% of rugby coverage was about… men.

The fictional journalists can’t stop talking about the men. Neither, apparently, can we.

Then there are the uniforms. When the Richmond women’s kit fails to arrive for the first match, a team of girls take the men’s shirts and bedazzle them. The women run onto the pitch wearing Richmond hand-me-downs covered in sparkles. 

It’s ridiculous. It’s joyful. And the metaphor is almost too perfect. Women adapting something designed for men and making it work? Where have I seen that before? Oh yes, I remember. The White Ferns were once tasked with sewing their own uniforms, and the Black Ferns didn’t get a bespoke women’s-fit jersey until 2021, 30 years after the team first took to the field.

Women’s sport has become very skilled at finding another way, following generations of “no”. No to equal pay. No to equal representation in boardrooms, leadership and coaching. In some cases, no to taking to the pitch for 50 years.

Then there’s commercial investment. No proven results? No money. And good luck getting those results without investment. Men’s sport is allowed time to build audiences, lose money and have bad seasons. Women’s sport is too often expected to prove its commercial value before anyone is prepared to invest in it. Meanwhile, more people are engaging with women’s sport than ever before, and women’s elite sport is forecast to generate US$3bn globally this year.

As Richmond marketing boss Keeley Jones puts it: “Every time you tell me no, it forces me to think of a different way to get things done.” That resilience is admirable. But “we’ll do it anyway” shouldn’t have to be the business model for women’s sport.

And when women stop being grateful and start demanding more, there’s another label waiting: difficult.

This season gives us several “difficult” women. My favourite is Zelda Southport, a billionaire investor in women’s sport and former punk rocker, who challenges a room of wealthy pale men on whether they even know the players’ names: “Put your fucking hearts where your fake allyship currently is.” 

“Never underestimate the power of anger as fuel,” she says. I know. I spent years being a difficult woman in sport. Anger gets things done. But fuel burns.

By episode four, though, I wasn’t throwing things, I was crying. Underneath all that rage, Ted Lasso understands something else about women’s sport: the joy is the point. It’s why we care. Why we fight for fair. Why we’re “difficult”. Why we believe.

And there is so much joy here: strong women backing each other, male allies who listen rather than lead, musical theatre geekery, Roy Kent’s chest hair and sparkly socks, Beard being wonderfully weird, a trained rat named Jonathan and one magnificent bar fight.

But my favourite moment came earlier in the season. Men’s coach Roy Kent tells his niece Phoebe that when people say “Richmond”, they usually mean the century-old men’s team. Phoebe, a pre-teen who confesses to kicking three boys in the balls at primary school, promptly puts Roy in the doghouse.

By the end of episode four, there’s no confusion about who Richmond is. The women have built their own team, found their people and taken up their space. They walk out together chanting: “We’re Richmond till we die.”

We’re not grateful guests anymore. We’re not just happy to be here. We fucking belong here.