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Ice Cube is speaking publicly on his league’s reported pursuit of Caitlin Clark.
The BIG3, the 3-on-3 basketball league founded by hip-hop icon Ice Cube, was the subject of a report this week linking it to Iowa college basketball superstar Caitlin Clark. According to the report, the BIG3 has offered Clark several million dollars to play in the league. The offer would only be for a handful of games and would not preclude Clark from playing in the WNBA.
In a post to X on Wednesday, Ice Cube said that they had intended for things to remain private but confirmed that the offer had been made.
“We intended the offer to remain private while Clark plays for the championship. But I won’t deny what’s now already out there: BIG3 made a historic offer to Clark,” Ice Cube wrote. “Why wouldn’t we? Caitlin is a generational athlete who can achieve tremendous success in the BIG3.
“With our offer, Clark can make history and break down even more barriers for women athletes,” he added. “America’s women athletes should not be forced to spend their off seasons playing in often dismal and dubious foreign countries just to make ends meet. And they should have more than just one professional option in the US at a time when American pro sports leagues are being infiltrated by autocratic, anti-women regimes such as Qatar. Our pathbreaking offer to Clark demonstrates that BIG3 now offers another choice for athletes.”
Ice Cube also noted his league’s track record of female inclusion, namely with Basketball Hall of Famers Nancy Lieberman and Lisa Leslie, who are head coaches in their league. Granted, the statement to X (which you can read in full here) seemed very carefully crafted, almost as if written by a PR person. It was also posted roughly an hour after the report about their offer to Clark surfaced, leading many to speculate that Ice Cube’s statement might have been a coordinated move.
In any case, Clark is the NCAA’s all-time leading women’s scorer and currently has Iowa in the Sweet 16 of the women’s NCAA Tournament. On the one hand, Clark is still at the beginning of her basketball career and may be an odd fit in a BIG3 league comprised of players at the end of theirs. On the other hand, though, she would be making a whopping seven-figure sum for essentially just a few weeks of offseason work in the BIG3 (when the highest-paid players in the WNBA make less than $250,000 per year.)
It might matter that Clark is already making a reported seven figures in NIL money regardless. But the BIG3’s offer, even if seemingly a publicity stunt at its core, should give Clark something to really think about.
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