The Big 3 returns this weekend, and league co-founder Ice Cube is excited about the future. But the legendary rapper/actor/businessman knows it hasn’t come without challenges.
Appearing on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on Wednesday, Ice Cube said the COVID pandemic and navigating choppy financial waters in the first five years of The Big 3 made for some tough situations.
“We invented this like from scratch, but it’s so dope,” Ice said of what he and league co-founder Jeff Kwatinetz have put together. “It’s been one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done in my career, because it’s been so hard. But we’re getting over the hump which is great.”
The whole goal for Ice Cube wasn’t to create a rival league to the NBA akin to how LIV Golf launched to go to war with the PGA Tour. He said one of the biggest hurdles has been the fact that the league doesn’t get the media coverage he thinks it deserves.
“We knew this wasn’t gonna be an easy lift,” he said. “We thought we were gonna get a lot more love from the overall sports media community.”
“To really virtually ignore a league that’s this great, that’s this dope in the summer, when there’s nothing else as far as hoops…The Big 3 is where it’s at,” Ice Cube added.
The resistance from the NBA was really eye-opening for Ice Cube. He had hoped the league would’ve been more embracing, but that just hasn’t been the case.
“A lot of owners loved us. I just think it really comes down to Adam Silver,” Ice Cube said. “I just don’t think he really digs what we’re doing personally.”
