We are finally heading into the fall television season, and while new shows will soon be coming at us from all sides, one which already has some buzz for the 2025 TV schedule is Chad Powers. The comedy (which you’ll be able to watch with your Hulu subscription) will see Twisters star Glen Powell in the role of a former college football star who’s now looking for redemption by faking the show’s titular persona so he can get back on the field. It’s said that viewers will be treated to a funny, heartwarming sports show that will remind us of Ted Lasso, but a Disney exec had some blunt thoughts about that comparison.
Why Is Glen Powell’s Chad Powers Being Compared To Ted Lasso And What Did A Disney Boss Say About It?
Chad Powers will mark the first time that Glen Powell has had a major TV role since his two seasons of Scream Queens, which ended in 2016. The new series will see his Russ Holliday, who whiffed a big play so badly that it led to a viral moment and utter disgrace, go undercover (prosthetics, fake accent, new name and all) eight years later to make another attempt at his collegiate football career.
Even though the basic sports comedy and fish-out-of-water parallels to Emmy winner Ted Lasso (which is working on a rather unexpected Season 4 after quite a long wait) are pretty clear, another thing the shows have in common is their unusual starting points. With Lasso, it was a series of commercials for NBC’s coverage of the Premier League. In the case of Powers, it’s the 2022 viral video of Eli Manning going undercover at Penn State’s football tryouts. Craig Erwich, president of the Disney Television Group (which includes Hulu), recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the show, and said that comparisons to the Apple TV+ hit aren’t quite to be trusted, noting:
[It’s] a narrow view and quite a disservice to both shows.
I can certainly see both sides of this pretty easily. On one hand, why wouldn’t a new series which has obvious similarities to a previous show elicit reactions that compare the two? Powers, it should be noted, is also being touted as an ensemble where other characters played by stars like Steve Zahn will also get plenty of time to shine, much like Lasso.
However, it’s also true that for whatever correlations that we may see in the plots and how the shows came to be, they are each their own, distinct entities, and watching Chad Powers with hopes that it will deliver the same emotional reactions that one had to Ted Lasso would be a mistake.
Fans of the Jason Sudeikis starrer could easily miss things that make the upcoming series special because they’re too hopeful that the comedy will take them to Lasso-like heights, instead of being able to fully grasp all the wonderful things about the Anyone But You lead's series.
Powell’s show will debut soon, so it won’t be long before we audiences see it, and we learn if they can’t stop name-dropping that other sports comedy once they do.
