“Ted Lasso” is the most successful TV comedy show in the world, winning the coveted Best Comedy Emmy Award in both of its two seasons. The show is about an American football coach who goes to England to coach a fictional Premier League soccer team called AFC Richmond. EA Sports’ FIFA, is the most popular and best selling sports video game in the world, featuring over 700 real clubs from around the world. Since the launch of Ted Lasso, the show’s marketing has treated Ted and his team, AFC Richmond, as a REAL team by doing things like posting bespoke post match interviews based on games that are played in the show and creating in-world Twitter accounts for Ted and other key characters. To take this in-world storytelling to the next level, Ted Lasso partnered with the most important place any REAL team could ever show up: FIFA 23, the biggest sports video game in the world. This makes AFC Richmond the first ever fictional football team to ever be allowed into the game—which is known for its authenticity and becoming more REAL with every release. For gamers to accept it, it couldn’t feel like a branded sponsorship. Which meant, no show branding at all. Ted’s official Twitter account kicked off the partnership with a teaser post featuring the back of his head getting a 360º motion capture scan. Thousands of fans of Ted and FIFA immediately started posting and speculating about the possibility of Ted and AFC Richmond actually being in the game. The next day, a launch film confirmed the sponsorship, getting 7 million views on the first day alone and trending across multiple social platforms. Results: - 13.2 Billion Earned Media impressions in the first 30 days. - 17th most played team in FIFA (out of over 700 REAL teams). - Over 2000 articles written globally about the partnership. - With no paid media the partnership got more social buzz than when the show, Ted Lasso, won 4 Emmy Awards. - Streaming of Ted Lasso on Apple TV+ went up 35%.