Ty Burrell retoma la pantalla con una nueva versión de la comedia Coach

smells a familiar basketball and a return to television: Ty Burrell, the actor who made Phil Dunphy one of the most beloved fathers of Modern Family, is preparing a comeback to the small screen. Six years after the end of the sitcom that defined his recent career, he will star in Coach, a new version of the classic basketball comedy for NBC.

The series is written by Daniel Libman and Matthew Libman, creators of Mr. Throwback. Its premise returns to the roots of the original: a legendary coach goes back to his hometown in Minnesota to rebuild a university basketball program and reconnect with the community he left behind. Burrell, who played Phil Dunphy throughout the eleven seasons of Modern Family between 2009 and 2020, will be the central figure of the story.

A return after moving away from Hollywood

Burrell's new project comes after a period in which he stepped away from the center of the American television industry. After Modern Family ended, he left Los Angeles and moved with his wife, Holly, and their daughters Frances and Greta to Salt Lake City, Utah. There he kept a lower profile and took on occasional voice acting work and a podcast project, while prioritizing family life.

“Ha sido simplemente espectacular. Nos mudamos aquí justo después de que terminara y no me arrepiento de nada. Ha sido maravilloso y es un lugar estupendo para criar a las niñas.”Ty Burrell

The actor said that he does not regret the decision to move away from Los Angeles, and his words make clear that this change was not presented as a retirement from the profession. It was, rather, a deliberate decision to put his family and daily life first during a different stage of his career. Now, that balance may allow him to return to a major network without abandoning the life he built in Utah.

NBC's second attempt to revive Coach

This will not be the first time NBC has tried to bring Coach back. In 2015, the network produced a pilot focused on the original character's son, but the executives did not approve it and the project was shelved. The new series does not continue that approach: it returns to the premise of the original comedy, with Burrell taking over the central role that Craig T. Nelson played in the version broadcast by ABC from 1989 to 1997.

• Ty Burrell will star in the new version of Coach.
• Daniel Libman and Matthew Libman are the writers of the series.
• The story is set around a university basketball coach who returns to Minnesota.
• NBC produced a previous Coach pilot in 2015, but it was not approved.
• The project is still in development and does not yet have a confirmed premiere date.

The challenge for NBC is considerable, because Coach is not an unknown property: it is a recognizable comedy with a clear premise and a long television history. At the same time, Burrell brings an audience that followed him for more than a decade through Modern Family, a series that earned him two Emmy Awards for his work as Phil Dunphy. The strength of the new version will depend not only on whether viewers remember the original, but also on whether the story offers enough reasons to return to it today.

For now, Coach remains a project in development. There is no official release date, and its success will depend on the decisions the network makes about the cast, the tone and the schedule. Still, Burrell's return already provides an identifiable center: an actor with a long career in comedy who, after stepping back from the spotlight, is now preparing to take on a new basketball coach role with the same name as the series.