[This story contains minor spoilers for “Big Week,” the fourth episode of Ted Lasso’s third season.]

During the April 5 episode of Ted Lasso, Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) holds a copy of Grant Wahl’s book The Beckham Experiment, about the soccer superstar’s decision to jump from top European leagues to the L.A. Galaxy of Major League Soccer in the United States. At the time the scene was filmed, it was intended as an Easter egg, as most of Beard’s reading choices have been (earlier in the season, he and Ted (Jason Sudeikis) thumbed through the football strategy book Inverting the Pyramid).

By the time the episode debuted on Apple TV+, however, the nod to Wahl had turned into into a tribute. Wahl died of an aortic aneurysm while covering the 2022 men’s World Cup in Qatar, and the show dedicated the episode, “Big Week,” to him with a title card in the closing credits.

Hunt, a co-creator and executive producer of Ted Lasso, told...