# The League (2009)

> Four crude Chicago buddies and their fantasy football league turn every draft, trade and matchup into a battle of humiliation.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/29012

## Facts

- Seasons: 7
- Episodes: 84
- Episode runtime: 22 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: comedy
- Created by: Jeff Schaffer, Jackie Marcus Schaffer
- Network: FX, FXX
- Cast: Mark Duplass, Stephen Rannazzisi, Nick Kroll, Paul Scheer, Jon Lajoie, Katie Aselton, Kayden Kross, Alina Foley
- TMDB rating: 8.2/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1480684/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: mild
- Complexity: simple
- Violence: none
- Tone: crude, irreverent, raunchy, breezy, sardonic

## What critics say

Audiences broadly regard The League as a sharp, crude and well-acted fantasy football comedy whose improvised rapport among its friends is its main strength, though it loses some bite in its later seasons.

## Synopsis

The League (2009-2015) is an American semi-improvised sitcom created by Jeff Schaffer and Jackie Marcus Schaffer for FX and FXX. Mark Duplass plays Pete Eckhart, a sharp-tongued Chicago professional who shares a fantasy football league with his closest friends, including Stephen Rannazzisi as Kevin, Nick Kroll as Ruxin, Paul Scheer as Andre and Jon Lajoie as Taco, while Katie Aselton plays Jenny, Pete's wife. The engine of the show is simple: each man wants to win the league and to stay on top of his friends, and every draft, trade and weekly matchup becomes a chance for humiliation. Episodes are built around everyday lives, bickering couples and rivalries that spill out of the league and into bars, homes and sports nights. Its seven seasons run as one continuing comedy with a loose, improvised feel and a crude, gleefully unapologetic tone. The show is a broadcast comedy with raw language and sexual humor, closer in spirit to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia than to a polished network sitcom, and fans of Eastbound & Down and Entourage will find the same appetite for male friendship filtered through ridicule. Set in contemporary Chicago, it sits squarely within American sports fandom.

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