Talk about bad timing. Just as my colleague recently noted the wide open field for fantasy football-themed programming to be explored, a couple of identically-named series have come along to narrow the window considerably. Perhaps for fantasy football addicts, the more content covering their passion the better, but for the rest of us, Rules of The League appears to be an early casualty.
A casualty by whom, you ask? Two words: The League. First, there’s the TV show The League, which recently debuted on FX. It seems that one of the main hurdles for web video to flourish and make it onto a wider [mainstream?] radar is that it keeps up with, if not transcends, some of the latest offerings from corporate entertainment, i.e. The Man. But with programming like The League – whose debut episode I caught a good chunk of over the weekend, and which looks to be kicking some serious ass – that’s going to be a tall order. Meanwhile, on the internet itself, another The League, now six episodes in, also appears to making rather respectable inroads, nicely balancing fandom rituals and vernacular with some of the daily challenges of life.
Thanks to these two entries alone, Rules of the League appears to be, dare I say it, late for the game. Well, for those still on board, here’s the story: Joel Ballard has recently become unemployed from the L.A. Times (ouch, I can relate) and is aiming to make a career of his fantasy football blog, which had gotten him the Times job, and the job, in turn, had kept him from the blog.
One of writer/director Adam Kerpelman’s strengths is his use of cross-platform communication—texts to video, video chatting, onscreen email lists – to nicely illustrate our electro-centric lives.
