Hannah Waddingham is the first person to admit that she is far from a soccer expert. But she has fully embraced the role of ambassador for the beautiful game.
The actress skyrocketed in popularity after endearing audiences in “Ted Lasso” as Rebecca Welton, the owner of AFC Richmond. She won an Emmy for her performance where Welton navigates the difficulties of a woman in sports, the heartache of a divorce and the joys of an unlikely friendship.
The show helped Waddingham fall in love with football — as it’s called in her native England — and the more she learned about the sport, the more she was impressed with the women who play with just as much athletic talent as the men and perhaps more heart.
“They’re doing it because they have to, they’re compelled to do it. Rather than that thing of the men’s game where they turn up and of course all the arenas are filled,” she told USA TODAY Sports. “Those women were working just as hard if not harder in that crazy heat with a stadium that’s half empty. And that’s not right.”
Now, she’s using her platform from “Ted Lasso” to encourage people to support the women’s game. There’s even a little Easter egg in the show’s finale that mirrors her passion. She previously hosted “Hustle Rule,” a podcast about the struggles women football players have overcome to play the sport they love. This summer during the World Cup, she is partnering with Johnnie Walker for a campaign called “Watch Women’s Sports” where she has created content called “Match Day Memos” for fans to sign up and receive alerts to watch games.
The campaign cites numbers from Buick that say women make up 40 percent of athletes, but receive 10 percent of coverage. For Waddingham, watching sports is key to creating fans and she believes a trickle effect will encourage young girls like her daughter that they have a place in sports.
USA TODAY Sports spoke with Waddingham about the campaign to encourage people to watch women’s sports, how women’s sports has similarities to theater and her role as an ambassador for the beautiful game. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Why was it important to you to be a part of this campaign with Johnnie Walker to ‘Watch Women’s Sports’?
I did pick this very carefully because I have a little girl. My daughter is nine years old. And thankfully through my beloved “Ted Lasso,” I’ve been able to take her to more and more football and it has been quite an eye opener to me to discover — I didn’t know before getting involved with our show that both the England and American women’s teams are far more successful than their male counterparts and yet they only have 10 percent of total sports coverage. It was literally like Scooby Doo like “ruuuh” when I heard that. I thought it’s my responsibility as a mommy, as a single mom and as this kind of matriarch within our show of “Ted Lasso” to use that platform and join hands with Johnnie Walker because I love the fact that their not funding and promoting something that is already fully formed. They’re funding something because they believe in it in its more fledgling form. So it was an obvious kind of bedfellow for me. And if I can do something that means that my daughter and her friends will go into senior school with far more representation, not feeling like the underdogs to the boys and have the opportunity to meet them head on, then I’ve done something good.
How is this initiative extra important with the World Cup this summer?
Our Lionesses, I was speaking to Leah Williamson the other day and I tell you, they are, my God, you’ve never seen a more pumped group of females. They’re just like “rawwrr” and I love that. Do you know that something, when I first kind of struck up this partnership with the Johnnie Walker guys, another reason it pricked my ears up is because my dad who’s 82 years old and very English and very traditional, I didn’t think for a second that this would come out of his mouth. I said that I’d taken my daughter to see England play and he went, “Oh, I think the women’s game is far more impressive and proper football than the male game because they play as an actual team” and he prefers to watch women’s football. And I was like, “Yes, Daddy!” You know? So, I mean it starts in the home, doesn’t it? The things I used to watch when I was younger, I used to watch netball and then I went into doing netball. I get my daughter to watch the football, she watches it with her grandfather and that’s how it trickles in.
For sure, that’s how I got into sports, watching them with my dad.
And it’s so simple. I think perhaps people just need a nudge. That’s why we started this kind of mantra of saying, “Sign up for my Match Day Memos.” If it’s like a little thing that will make people go, “Ooo, what’s that about?” And if it’s anybody that’s watched “Ted Lasso,” then hopefully they’ll be along for the ride and think, “Oh.” A little girl of like 15 or whatever, who might think, “Oh I aspire to being like her or being like her character” or whatever. It’s just gathering. It’s like going, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon. They’re great, great! Look at these women, they’re just extraordinary.” It’s that thing of mental health as well for me, making sure that the younger generation are seeing that women are forces to be reckoned with. It’s something I get a bit passionate about, I have to be careful that I don’t swear.
I saw you attended the Gotham FC-Angel City FC match, was that your first NWSL game and what was your experience like?
It was (the first match) that side of the pond. For starters, I don’t know how any of them could breathe. They are the most outstanding athletes above anything else, football, basketball, whatever. The athletes that they are, they are just, I couldn’t quite believe that they would be able to breathe on the pitch let alone run around for 90 minutes. Just extraordinary. I feel like, I was saying to the owner of Gotham that another thing that makes me have a kind of passion for it is the fact that I see them as theatricals in a way. We are a band of gypsies that are there, that has been a vocation in life. Not because of money, not because of fame, when you go into theater, you don’t go into theater for money or fame, you go in because it’s in your bloodstream and you can’t help it and you have to serve it. It’s not an occupation at first, it’s a vocation in life. And I feel that from them because they are hugely underfunded, because they are hugely underwatched. They’re like, “C’mon!” And they’re doing it because they have to, they’re compelled to do it. Rather than that thing of the men’s game where they turn up and of course all the arenas are filled. Those women were working just as hard if not harder in that crazy heat with a stadium that’s half empty. And that’s not right. We have to bring everybody out of their homes, get them into pubs and bars and change it, because they are too magnificent athletes to be ignored.
You’ve done several projects that have had this mission, is there any pressure with the role as the matriarch of women’s football?
I would say that I make one thing perfectly clear and that’s my brain continues to be a complete and utter fog about the actual rules of the game. But it’s my job to put it more on a platform if the people that have followed our show, that’s why I was so thrilled when one of the final scenes of “Ted Lasso” is Rebecca receiving a thing from Keeley of all people, saying “Richmond Women’s League.” It’s things like that, little blrrrp (rubs fingers together as if sprinkling something), little bit of sugar on top of it, so I see myself in that way like shining the light on it and wanting to encourage. Like I say, my daughter’s little pals, they still feel like a visiting foreign entity when the boys are having a kickabout and that bugs me. I don’t claim to be any kind of aficionado, but I know that I love it. I know that it gives me more of a buzz than the men’s game does.
