Ted Lasso: What Does Relegation Mean?
AFC Richmond Face Relegation in "Ted Lasso" Season 3: Here's the Lowdown
Watch out! This post contains spoilers.
"Ted Lasso" is finally back for season three, and AFC Richmond have ended up somewhere they haven't been in quite a while: the Premier League. Richmond clawed their way out of the Championship — the league below — at the end of season two to enter the upper echelon of football. But at the start of season three, the onscreen media is convinced that Richmond will get relegated this year, causing the team to quickly freak out about that possibility, too.
If you're scratching your head in confusion at all of that, we get it. You're a Jason Sudeikis / Hannah Waddingham / heartfelt TV kinda viewer, not a football fan. Let us breakdown the relegation battle and what it means for AFC Richmond on "Ted Lasso".
What Is Relegation?
The football league system works on promotion and relegation. The teams are organised into tiers by how good they are, based on the points they received in the last season. At the end of the season every May, the top teams in each league (besides the Premier League) get promoted to the league above them. But the bottom three teams in each league are relegated to the league below them.
Each team plays 38 Premier League matches a season, which runs from August to May. A win is three points, a draw is one point, and a loss means zero points.
Why Could Richmond Get Relegated?
"Ted Lasso" season three picks up sometime in the summer before the Premier League season begins, and every football pundit has predicted the team will get relegated at the end of the year, ending right back where they started. It's not a ridiculous prediction, since a lot of recently promoted clubs do get relegated the next year. A club that won enough games to get promoted was competing against teams that are on its level, and now they've increased the calibre of competition by moving up. It's a tough task. The top of the league is also dominated by teams that haven't typically been relegated in a long time. For example, the current, real-life points leader, Arsenal, was only ever relegated once — in 1913. But it's not a situation that can't be overcome; Crystal Palace (the team whose stadium "Ted Lasso" uses) was relegated in 1998 and returned strongly to the Premier League in 2016.
The Premier League is the peak of British football, and it also comes with more money and more sponsorships. It would not just be disappointing to move down again; it would also impact the club income.
To stay in the Premier League, Ted (Sudeikis), Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), and Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) will have to lead Richmond to greatness this season. We can't wait to see what happens.
New episodes of "Ted Lasso" premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV+.
