Ask Ice Cube where his greatest impact is and he firmly says music.
“Unknowing to us with NWA, we changed the trajectory of music,” Ice Cube told the Miami Herald via Zoom. “When you change the trajectory of a genre, something as big as music, that’s an impact that you really can’t measure because it reverberates through different generations.”
But with his contributions in sports (co-founder of the BIG3) and film (more than 100 actor, producer and director credits) he certainly has an argument for more than just music, especially considering the league’s impending expansion.
In 2025, the BIG3 will now have teams to represent more markets. The league recently announced Miami as one of the two cities alongside Los Angeles.
“Connecting teams with cities we believe will unlock a great fan base, loyal fans who will probably follow their teams from city to city,” Ice Cube said.
The choice of Miami was somewhat obvious, though it’s unclear where the team will play.
“Miami is a beautiful city,” Ice Cube said. “It’s amazing. It’s a destination for a lot of people. A lot of people dream to come to Miami. It’s a town that if you’re winning , they really, really get behind you.”
Purchased by real estate executive Heath Freeman, the team reportedly sold for $10 million.
“BIG3 is shaping the future of basketball; the game play is dynamic and nuanced and the product on the court appeals to the audiences in this incredibly fast-growing region,” Freeman said in a press release. “Basketball fans across South Florida can rest assured that this franchise will soon add to our great region’s winning sports pedigree.”
One of the aspects that make the BIG3 unique, however, could change. As it stands now, big-name players — i.e. the captains and co-captains — can choose their team and help the coaches select the rest of players from a draft pool. That, however, might no longer be the case.
“Each owner is going to take the reins on their team in some way shape or form,” Ice Cube said. “You don’t really own a team unless you run it you know? Some owners will choose to keep that in place. Some owners will pick players they believe they can win with.”
As for other potential homes, Ice Cube mentioned that the league is currently in talks with people from Dallas, Toronto, New York and even London. The goal, according to Ice Cube, is to eventually expand from 12 to 20 teams.
“We got the best in the world at this style,” he said.
The BIG3 league started in 2017. Now in its eighth season, Ice Cube said one of his biggest inspirations was watching Kobe Bryant drop 60 in his last game.
“What I was upset about was that I couldn’t pay to see him play no more,” Ice Cube said. “I had paid to see him play for 20 years and now it was over. It was nowhere in the world I could see him play again. It made me dream up a league where if guys wanted to keep going and wanted to continue, especially a guy that could score 60 points, we got a place for them.”
When he originally brought the idea to Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers great actually gave him the stamp of approval.
“I told him when we were starting it that, I asked him if it was a good idea,” Ice Cube recalled. “He looked at me and was like ‘Yep. It’s a good idea.’”
Getting the Black Mamba to suit up, however, was a much different story.
“I asked him every time I saw him,” Ice Cube quipped.
As of 2024, the BIG3 has been home to former All-Stars such as Allen Iverson and Joe Johnson while employing a plethora of Hall of Famers — Rick Barry, Gary Payton, Julius Irving — as coaches. And now that 3-on-3 basketball is an official Olympic sport , Ice Cube wants the U.S. team to know where to look for the best of the best.
“If they really know what’s good for them, they’ll ask to use our athletes,” he said.
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