How ‘Ted Lasso’ turned a charming London suburb into a tourist hotspot

A Fictional Football Coach Is Reshaping a Historic Thames-Side Suburb

Sandego.net – Richmond-upon-Thames sits roughly twenty minutes by train west of central London, a leafy district long associated with royal hunting grounds, Tudor-era architecture, and the deer that roam its ancient parkland. For centuries its identity was anchored in aristocratic leisure and the shadow of Richmond Palace, the Tudor residence that once housed monarchs. Today, however, a very different kind of visitor streams through its cobblestone lanes: fans of a television comedy-drama about an American football coach who lands in English professional soccer with nothing but relentless optimism and a gift for the well-timed quip.

Apple TV’s “Ted Lasso,” now in its fourth series, has turned this quiet suburb into a pilgrimage site for viewers across the globe. The show follows its titular coach, portrayed by Jason Sudeikis, as he attempts to rebuild a struggling English soccer club armed with sheer belief and an encyclopedic knowledge of motivational speech. While the character famously struggles to grasp the offside rule — widely regarded as one of the sport’s most bewildering laws — his coaching instincts prove formidable.

“The first time you watch it, you think the series is about football. But the culture, the messaging — it’s about so much more.”

Natalia, a Brazilian visitor standing outside The Prince’s Head pub, offered that assessment. In the show, the pub is renamed the “Crown and Anchor,” and its publican, Mae Green (played by Annette Badland), keeps tabs on unruly patrons during match days. The real Prince’s Head dates to the 1700s and sits at the end of Paved Court, a narrow lane lined with window shopfronts including a delicatessen and a millinery. Just a few doors down, the official “Ted Lasso” retail outlet sells the red-and-blue AFC Richmond kits alongside shortbread marketed as “biscuits for the boss.”

The Bench, the Green, and the Waterfront

The single most photographed spot in the area is a wooden bench outside the pub — Coach Lasso’s signature thinking seat, where he contemplates the week’s fixtures with a faraway gaze. Richmond Green, the tree-lined common directly opposite, once hosted jousting tournaments for visiting royalty. Today visitors picnic there, stroll the paths, and occasionally join a casual kickabout, much as the fictional coach does with a coffee in hand.

Richmond’s riverside claims London’s longest continuous stretch of the River Thames. Fans recreate the first date between Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and Keely Jones (Juno Temple) by ambling along Richmond Bridge, accompanied by local buskers. A puppet-theatre barge drifts past, and one pub sits so close to the waterline that it floods at high tide; complimentary gumboots are provided at the door.

Record-Breaking Viewership, Record-Breaking Tourism

The fourth season’s premiere last month became Apple TV’s largest launch in the platform’s history, shattering concurrent-viewing records. That surge translated almost immediately into foot traffic in Richmond. Local hospitality operators have reported roughly double the number of American visitors since the show first aired, a figure cited by the New York Times. Tourists now arrive from India, Singapore, Mexico, and beyond, following itineraries mapped to specific scenes.

Multiple guided-tour operators have sprung up in the area since the series debuted. Ted Lasso Tours, launched in 2022 by Richmond resident Emmy Mac, runs private and group excursions covering 27 filming locations. Mac notes that while most bookings come from the United States, international fans are increasingly common.

A Day’s Itinerary and Its Limits

For those extending a visit, the historic Richmond Theatre — built in 1899 and home to a charity gala hosted by Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) in season one — offers a natural evening capstone. What fans will not find, however, is the team’s home ground, referred to in the show as “the dog track.” Match-day scenes are actually shot at Selhurst Park, the Crystal Palace stadium in south London, roughly twenty miles from the suburb’s cobbled lanes.

Not every resident welcomes the influx. Steve Lloyd, who has lived in Richmond since 1992, says he has lost count of the tourist photographs in which he appears as an unwitting background figure. His own verdict on the programme is blunt:

“I tried to watch it — got 15 minutes in and thought, ‘this is crap.'”

Yet Lloyd concedes the economic and cultural ripple effects are difficult to ignore. A suburb that once attracted visitors primarily for its parkland, rowing regattas, and proximity to Richmond Palace now competes for attention with the fictional headquarters of an American dreamer who never quite gets English tea (or, in his words, “garbage water”) right. Millions have nonetheless fallen in love with the show, and Richmond’s cobblestones have become, for a new generation of travellers, the closest thing to a stadium pilgrimage without ever stepping onto a pitch.

The broader implication is worth noting: streaming platforms have become as potent a tourism engine as any airline campaign or heritage-body marketing push. A single fictional football club, played out in a leafy Thames-side suburb, has generated a self-sustaining cycle of fan travel, local retail, guided tours, and social-media content that would have been unimaginable a decade ago. Richmond’s deer still roam the green, and the Tudor walls still stand — but the crowd that gathers at the bench outside the Prince’s Head now speaks dozens of languages, united by a shared belief that a fictional coach’s optimism might, just for an afternoon, be contagious.