The wait is nearly over!

On Tuesday, January 28, Apple TV+ announced that the highly anticipated fourth season of Ted Lasso will premiere this summer with fan favorites Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, Juno Temple and Brett Goldstein all set to return.

However, it’s already getting two thumbs down from insiders with ties to the project, who say Sudeikis, 50, and other leading cast members couldn’t wait to wrap things up and the on-set atmosphere was labored and lacking energy, to say the least.

“When the initial run of Ted Lasso wrapped a few years ago, Jason had ambitions to finally become a full-blown global movie star,” a source tells In Touch. But the only additions to his IMDb page have been commercials for Michelob Ultra and Taco Bell, voice-over work for Hit-Monkey and Hitpig! and guest appearances on Jason and Travis Kelce’s podcast, New Heights, and SNL50: The Anniversary Special.

What the actor ultimately found, says the source, was that “the best payday he had in front of him, by far, was to revive Lasso, grow the mustache back and play this character again that everybody loved so much.”

A lot has changed since the Emmy-winning series premiered in 2020, though.

“Jason, in particular, is very aware of how the pandemic, and how isolated people felt back then, fed into the show’s initial success,” says In Touch’s source. “People have a lot more entertainment options than they did when everybody in the country was sheltered in place for months at a time.”

It’s going to be up to Sudeikis and his castmates to get viewers to believe in this season, which will follow a women’s soccer team in Richmond.

“Even under the best circumstances, Jason hates doing press,” admits the source. “But he’s really going to have to get out there and beat the drum to re-activate his fan base and make sure this very expensive season of television doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.”