Ice Cube Expands BIG3 by Bringing New Teams to Miami and Houston

Ice Cube recently announced the expansion of his BIG3 basketball league to Houston and Miami.

Earlier this year, Cube expressed his vision of taking the BIG3 from hosting away games to creating home teams across the country, with Los Angeles being his first acquisition. It looks like he’s making progress.

Bloomberg reported Wednesday (July 3) that Eric Mullins and Milton Carroll bought a franchise in Houston and last month, businessman Heath Freeman acquired a unit in Miami. Freeman said, “I am honored to join Ice Cube and (co-founder) Jeff Kwatinetz at the BIG3 and bring a new professional basketball team to Miami.”

He added: “BIG3 is shaping the future of basketball; the gameplay is dynamic and nuanced, and the on-court product is engaging audiences in this growing region. Basketball fans in South Florida can rest assured that this franchise will soon help enrich the winning sports pedigree of our greater region.”

Here’s what Cube said in an exclusive interview with VIBE ahead of the announced expansion:

“We’d like to be in Toronto, New York, Miami, Chicago, the Bay Area, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, DMV, St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit,” he said. “We’d like to be in Jersey. We actually have a game in Newark this year.”

In case you missed it, Cube also mentioned his attempts to sign recently drafted Indiana Fever player Caitlin Clark ahead of the 2024 WNBA season. A stroke of PR genius. Here’s what he had to say:

“Her impact on the ratings is undeniable. She had better ratings than the NBA,” he said of the talented athlete. “As a league, you want that kind of star. It would raise the bar for everybody. If another player comes along with that kind of impact, of course, we’ll pursue her.”

Cube added: “It’s something that our sponsors and everybody were looking at, and if we had it, it would have meant that the league could have raised more money from all of our partners and sponsors. It would have been a big win for the whole league.”