Ice Cube Expands BIG3 Basketball League With Teams In Houston And Miami
Ice Cube‘s BIG3 basketball league continues to get bigger and bigger.
The multi-hyphenate Hip-Hop icon recently announced that his sports organization has expanded to Houston and Miami. Earlier this year, Cube expressed his desire to transition the BIG3 league from hosting games on the road to having home teams across the nation, as Los Angeles was his first acquisition.
On Wednesday (July 3), Bloomberg reported that Eric Mullins and Milton Carroll bought a franchise in Houston, and last month, businessman, Heath Freeman, purchased a unit in Miami. “I am honored to join Ice Cube and [co-founder] Jeff Kwatinetz at the BIG3 and bring a new professional basketball team to Miami,” Freeman said at the time.
He added, “BIG3 is shaping the future of basketball; the gameplay is dynamic and nuanced and the product on the court appeals to the audiences in this incredibly fast-growing region. Basketball fans across South Florida can rest assured that this franchise will soon add to our great region’s winning sports pedigree.”
Prior to the deals mentioned above, Cube spoke with VIBE in an exclusive interview where he shared the other cities that he’d like to expand to. “We’d love to be in Toronto, New York, Miami, Chicago, the Bay Area, DC area, Baltimore, DMV, St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit,” he expressed. “We’d love to be in Jersey. We actually got a game in Newark this year.”
He also spoke with the outlet about his attempts to recruit newly-drafted Indiana Fever player, Caitlin Clark, ahead of the 2024 WNBA season.
Caitlin Clark #22 of the Indiana Fever shoots a free throw against the Las Vegas Aces in the first quarter of their game at T-Mobile Arena on July 02, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
“Her impact on the ratings is something that’s undeniable. She was doing better ratings than the NBA,” he spoke of the skilled athelete. “As a league, you want that kind of star power. It would raise the bar for everybody. If another player come along with that kind of impact, of course, we would go after them.”
He added, “It’s something that our sponsors and everybody was looking at, and if we would’ve landed her, it would have meant the league would’ve been able to collect more dollars from all our partners and sponsors. It would’ve been a big win for the whole league.”
The BIG3’s next event is set to take place in Newark, NJ, at the Prudential Center on Sunday (July 7). Grab tickets here.
