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The legendary rapper, actor and co-founder of BIG3 tells theGrio’s Panama Jackson, “they’re trying to crush Ice Cube and my league.”
BIG3, the professional three-on-three basketball league founded by hip-hop legend Ice Cube and entertainment executive Jeff Kwatinetz, recently kicked off its sixth season. The league, made up of both former NBA players and international players, has a consistent fan base that attracts huge crowds as the 12 teams travel across the country to play during the summer months.
With his league games’ successful ratings and broadcast partnerships with Fox Sports and CBS, Ice Cube told theGrio’s Panama Jackson he believes the NBA is standing in the way of BIG3’s true potential.
While appearing on theGrio Black Podcast Network original “Dear Culture,” Ice Cube didn’t hold back the frustration he’s had with CEOs of major companies and brands that mandate “if you guys work it out with the NBA, we can do something with you,” he reveals.
There’s enough b-ball fans out there for both leagues to succeed, he argues, and he doesn’t understand why the NBA would try to stop BIG3’s players, coaches and support workers from making money when the major league no longer has a place for them. The BIG3’s staff is predominantly Black, and Cube says the NBA is trying to suppress their livelihoods, all while claiming to care about the Black community.
The following is a transcript of their conversation.
Ice Cube: They’re actually going behind our back and talking to networks. They’re talking to sponsors, you know, companies, brands who advertise with basketball, advertise in the NBA, and they’re going to personalities, their players, who are on air and telling them basically not to speak about the BIG3. We’ve heard it from very reputable sources and sometimes out of the companies. The CEO, CMO, um, COO. You know, these guys are, you know, they tell it straight up: ‘You know, if you guys work it out with the NBA, we can do something with you,’ and they’re basically saying, ‘If you don’t, we can’t.’ We were told as much. So, it’s just gotta stop, and this is my way of trying to shed some light on it because I don’t have a lot of sports media covering the league like it should, and that’s probably because of NBA pressure. So, I just want to deal with it.
Panama Jackson: If the NBA is suppressing media coverage in all of this and getting in the way, why do you think that is? Because it doesn’t… this is not even a league that’s in competition directly with the NBA. I mean, it doesn’t even occur during the same time frame. You know, it has former players involved … what do you think leads to that?
Ice Cube: A couple of things. It could be a couple of things, you know. I don’t know the direct reason. You know, I’m speculating, but the NBA believe they own basketball, and they don’t like the fact that we, we’re changing the game, that we’ve pushed the game — but our game. You know, we haven’t touched the NBA. They’ve actually taken some rules that we implemented in our league and put it in their league.
Jackson: Like which ones?
Ice Cube: Players picking their own team during All-Star Game. You know, that’s straight-up BIG3.
We were on the 14-second shot clock, you know. They do it now. After, you know, if a ball goes out of bounds, and it stays on the same side of the court, they do that. We got the coaches out them damn suits and shit, you know — all them little things, you know. And us being first with mental health. They used to shun players because they were struggling mentally. They used to put them out the league, they used to blackball ’em. We were first with CBD use, getting our players off of opioids to heal their pain. You know, we got a growing list. I mean, they got about 14 to 18 things that we’ve seen that they’ve borrowed from us.
Now, look, they’ve been around 75 years, and we’ve borrowed a lot from them. OK. We’re not complaining. What we’re saying is we’re good for the game. We have their players. You know, It’s like they’re trying to crush Ice Cube and my league. OK? But what they’re going to crush is Dr. J from having a head coaching job. Rick Barry, Ice Man. They don’t have no head coaching jobs for those guys. So why are they trying to stop them from eating in the BIG3? They’re stopping players who have to go overseas to play and make a living, stopping them from playing at home and making a living. All the people that work for the BIG3, all the people that work in the cities that we stop by, you know, all the other things that reverberate off the league, that puts money in our mouths as Black people, and they’re trying to crush it, and I don’t understand why. I said this today, and it’s like they’ve got Black Lives Matter on the court, but f–k what’s on the court. Like, what’s in your heart? Don’t care about that. Stop all the symbolism when you showing your blatant disregard for what we built. Now, we haven’t built it in a vacuum. We have some of that.
You know, Clyde Drexler is our commissioner. You know, we have some of the greatest players to ever touch a basketball endorse this league, be a part of this league, for six years. They’ve come back every year, which shows that we’re doing something right. We’re not, you know, this is not some scrub sh-t. So, they got to respect it, straight up. And if they don’t, I’m a make them respect it. That’s what I’m out to do. You know what I mean? They’re going to respect what we doing or they just go, you know, we just move furniture. We just going to continue to move furniture.
Jackson: One of my favorite phrases in Black America.
Watch the full conversation on “Dear Culture with Panama Jackson” on theGrio Black Podcast Network, theGrio App or wherever you get your podcasts.
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