
"What's up, babe? You acting? Sweet, babe."
In newsy news news, writers Joseph Balsamo and Peter Ciancarelli, who you may remember from… just this blog post, are suing FX because they claim that the network ripped off their idea with The League. Balsamo and Ciancarelli claim that they wrote a treatment for The Commissioner, and like The League, it was also about a group of friends who play fantasy football while behaving like men competing against each other naturally behave.
Make sure to properly secure your “Oh give me a f*cking break” faces for this one…
“Given the numerous and striking similarities between the two works, there can be no dispute that defendants Schaffer and/or FX had access to and copied protectable elements of the treatment,” the suit says. The suit then outlined 10 similarities between the two works. The plaintiffs filed Commissioner with the WGA back in 2006 and put the script online soon afterwards in an effort to attract attention. (Via Deadline)
“Ten Similarities Between The League and The Commissioner”? I must have missed that slideshow.
Now I’m no big city slicker fancy lawyer type, but as much as I love The League, it’s about as original as a knock-knock joke. Millions of bros and dudes play fantasy football, and we’re almost all in a league that features different types of guys who talk sh*t to each other, make side bets and generally piss each other off until they stop talking for months at a time or write each other absurd crybaby emails. We all do it, some of us *points to self* more than others.
But who cares about frivolous lawsuits by guys who had a stoner revelation moment of “Bro, we should make a TV show about a fantasy league”, when we have actual awesome news involving The League. Kristin Cavallari, AKA Mrs. Jay Cutler, filmed a guest spot for the show today.

“Big deal,” I’m sure someone will shout as he puts the finishing touches on a TV treatment about a guy who loves sandwiches and tits. But this has all the potential of being delightful, as Cavallari actually has a pretty decent sense of humor about her eventual husband, and I can only pray that this means that J-Cutty will even show up for his own cameo. Perhaps he’ll play Ruxin’s new pet cat or maybe he’ll deliver the greatest “Whatever, BRO” in TV history. Either way, color me excited.
If you’re keeping track at home, Cavallari joins Robert Griffin III, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Jerry Jones as some of the NFL cameos we’ll see on The League this season. And if the show wanted to lock down “Biggest Balls Ever” status, they’d have Chad Johnson back, buying condoms in a convenience store.
(Banner via the still delightful Smokin’ Jay Cutler.)


So, have you read the list of similarities? I haven’t, but I would check to see if it included similar character names, locations, dialog, etc. before I called it “frivolous.”
Here are the ten similarities for people too lazy to read the thing:
1. COLLECTION OF ODDBALL FRIENDS PLAY FANTASY FOOTBALL – The Commissioner has everyone starting season 10, League started at season 5
2. SIBLINGS IN THE SAME LEAGE – Commish has 3 bros, League has two bros
3. THERE IS A CHAMP WHAT HAS REPEATED BEING CHAMP – Commish’s Roberto Orlando won for the 2nd year in a row, League’s Pete won 2 years in a row.
4. CHAMP HAS RUNNING BACK TROUBLES IN WEEK 3 – The champs’ starting backs get injured/unavailable in week 3 and they’ve got to find a replacement.
5. RIVALS IN THE PLAY-OFF SEMI-FINALS, LOSER OF GAME FREAKS OUT – Commish’s Dino and his rival in the playoffs, with Dino needing his running back to get 4 yards to win, he doesn’t, Dino goes nuts. League has Kevin and Ruxin with Kevin needing his kicker to make a field goal, kicker shanks, Kevin goes nuts.
6. ALOOF CHARACTERS REFERRED TO BY NICKNAMES – Commish has “Bilbo” who is an aspiring comedian and loves to party. He reaches the championship, but doesn’t realize it. League has “Taco”, he wants to win the championship, but doesn’t realize he didn’t even make the playoffs.
7. DISPUTE OVER A FAIR WAIVER WIRE PROCESS – Commish has players accuse commissioner of cheating, League has Ruxin accuse Andre of cheating in waiver wire situations.
8. DURING THE PLAYOFFS, THEY GO TO A BAR TO WATCH GAMES, AND THERE ARE HIGH TENSIONS
9. DRAFT HELD IN LAS VEGAS
10. THEY GO TO A GENTLEMAN’S CLUB BUT ARE TOO CAUGHT UP IN FANTASY FOOTBALL, ANNOYING THE DANCERS
I gotta admit, I got really DOOOOOONNNNNTTTT CAAAAAREEEEEE mid-way through typing that up. Blarg.
In otherwords, they’re upset over the most generic crap a show about fantasy football would try and write about.
A Fantasy football show that has an episode about struggling running backs costing the owner a win? Why, that’s unheard of in the real world!
DONNNNNNNNNNNT CARRRRRRRRE
Now, now… I wasn’t being lazy. I clicked through to the Deadline.com source and I didn’t see this list. Upon further review, I see that in that article there is another link to the 9-page report.
That said, now that I see the list of similarities… yes, it does appear that The League is a ripoff of The Commissioner. I suspect there will be a cash settlement awarded to the original creators.
Is it me or does Mark Duplassis look just like Cutler F***er? Is she gonna bang him?????