Fictional Bantr Dating App From ‘Ted Lasso’ Coming to Bumble for Real – CNET [CNET]

Bantr Live will let daters chat without looks getting in the way. Hey, it worked for Rebecca and Sam.

Dating app Bumble is bringing a piece of the Ted Lasso universe to life. 

Fans of the Emmy-winning Apple TV Plus show starring Jason Sudeikis might remember a fictional dating app called Bantr that featured in one of season 2’s major plot lines. Now, Bumble users will get to try out a variation on that app themselves, Bumble said in a blog post on Monday.

On the show, Bantr lets daters chat without seeing photos of each other. Bumble’s version, Bantr Live, will function similarly. Starting on Oct. 13, daters can sign on at 7 p.m. local time every Thursday through the end of the year and be matched with another person based on attributes like age and location. They’ll have three minutes to chat. When that time is up, they’ll be asked if they’d like to match with that person. They’ll can also choose to be paired with someone else. 

If daters do match, they’ll be able to see each other’s full profile at the end of the game.

“You might connect with someone who you wouldn’t have considered before,” Bumble says. 

The extent to which looks impact daters’ romantic interest is an age-old question, particularly at a time when people can easily make split-second decisions based on online photos. In 2018, dating app S’More launched with the premise of blurring profile photos. The more a person interacted with attributes listed on a profile (ostensibly, the qualities that matter), the less blurry the photos would become. Netflix’s popular reality dating how Love is Blind bases itself on the question of whether people can fall in love without seeing each other first. The show has produced a few successes, but on more than one occasion, cast members haven’t ended up too thrilled with the reveal.

In addition to showing up in the dating world, Ted Lasso also recently made it into the gaming world. The coach and his team AFC Richmond appear in the video game FIFA 23.

Daters can RSVP for Bumble Live starting Oct. 11. As Bantr Live partners with Apple TV Plus, new subscribers can redeem a two-month trial of the streaming platform.