No one does the Running Man dance quite like Ted Lasso. And no one supports women’s sports quite like Jason Sudeikis.On Tuesday, Sudeikis walked the red carpet for Season 4 of the popular Apple TV sports dramedy, Ted Lasso, in which Sudeikis plays an American football-turned-soccer coach in charge of AFC Richmond’s inaugural women’s professional football club, the Lady Greyhounds.The actor showed up to said premiere in a pretty basic outfit (a plain navy shirt and black pants), which therefore drew attention to his shoes. On that front, the former SNL star rocked a pair of Caitlin Clark’s first-ever signature sneakers, the Nike Caitlin 1s, set to hit the shelves this October.Sudeikis wore the shoes in the “Racer Blue” colorway, a hue not too different from the royal blue of AFC Richmond’s (the fictional football club of Ted Lasso) home jerseys. See his snazzy outfit fitted with a sweet nod to Clark below:Jason Sudeikis pulled up to the “Ted Lasso” premiere in the Caitlin 1s@JasonSudeikis 🤝 @CaitlinClark22 pic.twitter.com/jc5dShof4j— Nick DePaula (@NickDePaula) August 5, 2026The fact that Sudeikis wore Clark’s signature shoes on a massive press day surrounding Ted Lasso’s latest season should not go unnoticed. “It's the closest thing I have to a tattoo,” Sudeikis said ofTed Lasso in a 2021 interview.“It's the most personal thing I've ever made.”For the first three seasons, the show followed Sudeikis as an uber-optimistic cheeseball of a coach taking over an English professional football club while also managing his drama-filled personal life. In a controversial Season 4 (many of the show’s fans, including me, think it should have ended with Season 3), Lasso returns to England to coach women’s football. Actor Brendan Hunt, who plays Lasso’s right-hand man Coach Beard, said this of the upcoming season featuring the Lady Greyhounds:“What strikes me is, like, we are kind of making fun of ourselves for the audacity of trying to do that,” Hunt said of the show’s attempts to address sexism in women’s sports in Season 4. “And acknowledging that that’s a bit silly because we’re just a silly old TV show, but then we do it. But we do it while knowing our place. We know we’re not going to solve any problems, but we can at least shine lights on them.”There is, of course, an irony in a show led by male actors (and a fictional women’s team led by male coaches) that tries to tackle broad systemic issues of sexism in women’s sports. But as Hunt points out, the show hopes not to overplay its hand by claiming it has an answer to those societal problems; rather, it simply wants to use its platform to highlight them. As proud as Sudeikis could be of his critically acclaimed show, his supporting cast and everybody who worked on Ted Lasso, he was just as proud to show off Clark’s shoes, literally using his platform to call attention to the Fever star and the larger WNBA. And though it may only further play into his corny coach stereotype, that truly makes him the real-life Ted Lasso. Ted Lasso, meet WNBA superfan Jason Sudeikis: A history of the actor’s support for women’s sportsSudeikis has served as one of the WNBA’s most fearless fans over the years—in the past, you may have seen him courtside cheering on the New York Liberty at Barclays Center, or proudly wearing his “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports” T-shirt out in public. During Ted Lasso’s press tour, Sudeikis, who is also a co-creator of the show, admitted his WNBA fandom inspired him to bring back the show for a fourth season. “Me getting to be around women's sports, specifically the WNBA,” Sudeikis said. “My sisters and I, my kids going to a lot of those games, having season tickets, season tickets right next to the opposing team's bench, which is fascinating. Just getting to watch these kick-ass women coming off of three three-pointers in a row or after being scored, you know, going on a 0-12 run, and just seeing the humanity and camaraderie amongst them.”Sudeikis and Hunt recently did an in-game interview at a Sparks-Liberty game in which they discussed some of the differences between coaching male versus female athletes.“Just the energy,” Sudeikis said of his experience at WNBA games. “I’m not like taking notes or stealing lines from what [Aces coach] Becky Hammon’s saying ... You’re catching the vibe of how hard [the players are] working and how tough they play.”Sudeikis has also been a longtime fan of Clark, dating back to her college hooping days. He was in the house for the 2021 NCAA Final Four matchup between Iowa and UConn, in which Clark’s Hawkeyes beat the Huskies to punch their ticket to the national championship. When Iowa beat LSU in the Elite Eight earlier in the tournament, Sudeikis was seen embracing Clark and sharing a sweet moment with the star after the game. Sudeikis, who grew up in the Kansas City area and is a self-proclaimed K.C. superfan, even included the K.C. Current, the city’s NWSL team, as a pivotal plot point in the first episode of Ted Lasso’s latest season, as well.“It is a little bit proof of concept,” Kansas City Current co-owner Angie Long said, via ESPN. “Everything that we’ve built, even a show like ‘Ted Lasso’ is seeing it. So, I think it’s endorsement. But again, what it means for sport, for women's soccer is huge.”Life, indeed, imitates art. Or art imitates life. Whichever way you want to spin it. More WNBA from Sports IllustratedAdd us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow