Everything you wanted to know about psychologically manipulating your competitors but were afraid to ask…

Has anybody seen “The League”?

If not, you’re forgiven. The FX comedy is nominally about a group of men competing in a fantasy football league, but really, the show is a poor attempt to capture the male-bonding dynamic. The show seems to be on the verge of cancellation after mustering poor ratings, which is a shame, because in better hands, a TV series that explores how men turn to fantasy sports after they’ve settled into families and careers holds promise.

Where did “The League” go wrong?

Maybe it’s the banal conception of how men enjoy fantasy sports. The members of this fictional fantasy league don’t spend too much time obsessing over data or how to make their teams better. I’ll grant that a majority of people who participate in fantasy leagues aren’t stat junkies. And maybe a mass marketed television show of data-crunchers makes for poor popular entertainment.

What the show portrays instead is a bunch of fictional fantasy geeks who like to spend a lot of time trash talking each other — posting naked pictures of friends’ wives on league message boards, making stupid assessments about a league member “rape trading” another member, elbowing the guy who doesn’t know that Plaxico Burress is no longer playing football, etc.

Trash talking is certainly a component of fantasy leagues, but clearly, these guys just don’t really know how to do it.

Trash talking isn’t just about making competitors feel miserable about themselves in order to gain self esteem. Maybe “The League” has a conception that men in their 30s need this kind of emotional prop, but it lacks imaginative psychological investigation of social relationships. Plus, trash talking like this isn’t very effective. As most people who participate in fantasy leagues know, talking smack about another competitor raises walls of defensiveness and leads to unproductive ends.

Yes, trash talking has its place as a great manipulative tool. Leagues are full of different personality types who respond to information in all sorts of fascinating ways. Figuring out how to best exploit the social atmosphere for competitive gain certainly happens across various fantasy sports leagues.

But please, show it right.

Here’s one example. A couple years ago, I realized that a fellow competitor had started to perceive a rivalry with my team. The guy was desperate to show me that he could beat me.

How did I respond? I recruited another member of the league to approach my supposed rival with a trade offer.

It was a trade that my rival should never have taken. And normally, he wouldn’t have considered it. But I rightfully predicted my rival would take the deal if (a) I started trash talking the players in the deal and (b) the other guy told my rival that I was using trash talking as a front to secretly make a trade behind his back.

My rival became paranoid and pulled the trigger on a foolish trade. In the course of the negotiations, I was able to engineer some spoils for myself. What psychological imperative compelled my competitive rival to abandon all sense of logic?

“The League” starts with a good concept. But the set-ups are unimaginative and the execution is akin to grade-school taunting. There’s certainly room for a TV series that shows us a lot more about the dynamics of relationships in the male sports world. Until then, I recommend renting old episodes of HBO’s “Arli$$.”