Asset Class: Ice Cube’s Big3 Plans

June 25, 2026

Ice Cube is taking Big3 public through a special purpose acquisition company merger that values the 3-on-3 basketball league at $290 million. He spoke to Front Office Sports about why now is the right time to give fans the ability to invest in Big3, and how an NBA restriction has made it challenging for the league to secure outside capital.

—Ben Horney

First Up

Michele Kang agreed to buy Olympique Lyonnais in a deal that would sever the French soccer club’s ties to John Textor’s Eagle Football Holdings. Read the story.
The CFTC sued Kentucky after the state’s attorney general last week filed lawsuits against Kalshi and Polymarket. Read the story.
Kalshi cofounder and CEO Tarek Mansour sat down with FOS to discuss the regulatory environment around prediction markets. Read the story.
Golden Knights owner Bill Foley is formally entering the race to land an NBA expansion team in Las Vegas. Read the story.

Why Big3 Is Going Public As Ice Cube Laments NBA Constraints

Credit: Chapman Baehler

Ice Cube envisions the Big3 being around for 100 years, and he tells Front Office Sports that now is the right time to take the 3-on-3 basketball league public amid challenges in securing outside capital due to NBA restrictions on owner investment.

The league’s ninth season opened with a bang over the weekend, as a fight led to one-game suspensions for former NBA players Lance Stephenson and Michael Beasley. Cube apologized for the incident after the game, although the passion that led to the fracas proves part of his thesis for taking the league public: Big3 is not a novelty act; it’s a competitive league whose players want to win.

“We want guys who still got a chip on their shoulder, who still wanna play basketball against their peers at a high level,” cofounder and CEO Ice Cube, whose real name is O’Shea Jackson, told FOS ahead of the Big3’s opening weekend. “We don’t just want your name though, that does us no good. We want your game.”

The league has plenty of big names. In addition to Stephenson and Beasley, players this season include Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer Dwight Howard and other longtime NBA pros like Derrick Favors, Montrezl Harrell, Corey Brewer, and Mario Chalmers. Founded in 2017, it currently has eight teams with a season that runs through the end of August.

Player salaries are not made public. Big3 cofounder and president Jeff Kwatinetz says there are standardized salary tiers; captains make the most but all captains earn the same amount, for example. Players also ultimately earn 50% of the league’s net profits at the conclusion of the playoffs, with each team’s share depending on how they finished. Last year, the first-place Miami 305 took home $650,000 and the second-place Chicago Triplets got $350,000.

“We’ve always believed that having players negotiate different deals makes the game more about the money and less about wanting to play,” Kwatinetz tells FOS. “We also believe our system creates more camaraderie.”

Now, it’s preparing to take its product to the public markets. Big3 HoldCo LLC announced on June 12 that it will go public at a $290 million valuation through a special purpose acquisition company merger with Graf Global Corp. Shares are expected to trade later this year on either the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq under the ticker symbol TONT.

“Most leagues are owned by a bunch of billionaires,” Cube tells FOS. “Fans, all they get to do is watch, buy some merch, get a ticket, and bet on the games. But they can’t invest. We want to change that. In my vision, we’re here 100 years, not just 9.”

Big3’s SPAC Deal “Has a Chance to Be Successful”

SPAC mergers involve an existing business combining with a shell entity, or a SPAC, that has raised money through its own IPO—Graf Global held its IPO in 2024, raising $200 million. Such deals are not new, although they gained steam following the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 as investors sought alternative ways to take companies public.

This year, SPACs are back, according to University of Florida finance professor Jay Ritter. He tells FOS there have already been about 108 SPAC IPOs this year, “the highest number since the boom year of 2021.” However, a successful SPAC IPO does not ensure a successful SPAC merger; there have been only 19 completed mergers in 2026, Ritter says, and in general the stock of companies that go public through SPAC mergers doesn’t always soar, with many seeing “big price drops soon thereafter.”

“But Big3 has a chance to be successful,” Ritter says. “Most mergers with SPACs have a problem with very little cash being raised because most SPAC investors redeem their shares at the time of the merger, asking for their money back. But that might not occur here, with Big3 receiving a large cash infusion, allowing them to expand.”

Kwatinetz tells FOS the timing reflects both momentum and demand for exposure to sports assets.

“We’re coming off our best season,” he says. “We feel like we’re at a tipping point.”

Big3 ratings were up over 25% last year, with the playoffs reaching more than 790,000 viewers on CBS (for context, NBA games regularly average more than 1 million viewers, and the NBA championship-clinching Game 5 drew 24.5 million viewers). This season marks the seventh year Big3 games are being broadcast on CBS (“we’ve got the same crew that worked on the last Super Bowl,” Kwatinetz says). Beginning this year, BET will rerun the CBS games in primetime on Monday evenings. It will also be streamed on the Fubo Sports Network, and for the first time Big3 has a streaming partner in China: Big3 games will be available there through a deal with Migu Video Co., according to a statement shared with FOS.

NBA Ownership Restrictions

The decision to go public is also aimed at helping the league continue to raise money, something Cube says has been a challenge due to restrictive NBA rules. He tells FOS the NBA considers Big3 a “competing league” and therefore prohibits NBA owners from investing in the league or its teams.

“This has been problematic without a doubt,” says Cube, who’s perhaps more known for his rap and acting career. “It has really hampered the growth of the league. Finding the right investors to take it to the next level has been challenging. It hasn’t been impossible, because we’ve done it. But it has been a huge challenge.”

A person familiar with the matter tells FOS the NBA does prohibit team owners from investing in Big3, but the policy is part of longstanding league rules governing investments in competing men’s basketball properties and is not specific to Cube’s league. (The policy is only for competing men’s leagues, not women’s, meaning the restriction does not extend to the 3-on-3 women’s basketball league Unrivaled.)

Still, in 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice reportedly launched an investigation into whether the NBA was engaged in anticompetitive practices regarding Big3. That probe began under the Biden Administration. It’s not clear whether it remains ongoing, and a representative for the DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NBA spokesperson Mike Bass told TMZ in 2023 that the claims against the NBA were “not true” and said “we have been supportive of the Big3 since its inception, but we declined to invest.”

DEAL FLOW

PWHL Gets Outside Investor

Shiann Darkangelo of Brighton plays for the Montreal Victoire during a PWHL game against the New York Siren on March 28, 2026 at Little Caesars Arena.

Daily Press and Argus

The Professional Women’s Hockey League has secured its first outside investment from Larry Tanenbaum’s Kilmer Sports Ventures and Ilitch Companies, which owns the Detroit Red Wings and Tigers. Terms were not disclosed, although Sportico reported the investors are plugging more than $100 million into the league, which was founded in 2023 by Lakers owner Mark Walter and his wife, Kimbra Walter, through Walter’s company TWG Global.
The owner of the Kentucky Derby in April agreed to pay $85 million for the intellectual property of the Preakness Stakes, a deal that was set to give it a commercial stake in two of the three legs that make up the Triple Crown. But Maryland says not so fast. The state has exercised its right to match Churchill Downs’s purchase price. Churchill CEO Bill Carstanjen said “we remain committed to working with the Governor and other elected leaders and horse racing constituents in Maryland to fully realize the potential of a redeveloped Pimlico and Preakness Stakes within the Triple Crown and the broader sports and entertainment landscape.”
Pat McAfee is the latest investor in Jams, a prepackaged peanut butter and jelly sandwich meant to rival Uncrustables. The brand was founded last year by 26-year-old Connor Blakley through his company, The Dropout Companies. Other Jams investors include Bears quarterback Caleb Williams and legendary soccer player Alex Morgan.
The São Paulo X Games team has been sold to Summit Ventures. The deal means five of the total six teams have now been sold, all in “eight-figure” transactions, a person familiar with the matter tells Front Office Sports. X Games—which is now called MoonPay X Games through a January agreement with the crypto firm—will hold summer and winter games in New York City. The summer games, which include sports like skateboarding and BMX biking, are scheduled to start June 26 in Sacramento.

NOTES FROM WALL STREET

Running Demand

On Holdings

Shares of Swiss sportswear brand On are down 18% so far this year. UBS analysts wrote in a note that while there’s concern among investors about slowing sales in On’s U.S. run specialty channel, “the market is missing” a few key points. For one, On is prioritizing “clean inventory levels and full-price sell-through” at wholesale partners ahead of new products coming later this year. “On’s approach is intended to ensure new products launch into a clean marketplace, reinforcing brand desirability.” Also, demand is strong: order books for the running channel are up more than 25% year over year. “We see ONON executing a deliberate US Run Specialty channel strategy rather than experiencing any deterioration in demand,” they wrote.
Nike announced Tuesday that CFO Matthew Friend will be leaving the company and is appointing Pfizer executive David Denton as his replacement, starting in August. BNP Paribas analysts said the news “was a surprise in terms of timing considering 4Q26 earnings is scheduled” for June 30. The analysts interpret the move to suggest that Nike’s calendar 2026 guidance will likely be cut on the fiscal Q4 earnings call and “Matt Friend will be on the call to deliver the bad news.” In its Q3 earnings report in March, Nike said it expected full 2026 sales to fall by a low single-digit percentage, led by growth in North America and offset by declines in China. Bank of America analysts on Wednesday wrote they “expect China to get worse before it gets better and model 4Q sales -20%.”
As of Monday, prediction-market volume was up 49% week over week to $11 billion, according to Bank of America. Within that, Kalshi’s volume was up 39% week over week to $8.875 billion, with more than $1 billion in volume every day last week. BofA estimates Kalshi is averaging about $125 million of volume per World Cup match, including parlays. Assuming volume per game stays consistent, the analysts expect Kalshi to reach somewhere around $12 billion to $13 billion in total volume for the World Cup—which would convert to about $3.5 billion to $4 billion in handle for the World Cup.

Legal Corner

No Contest

Apr 24, 2026; Houston, Texas, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) controls the ball as Los Angeles Lakers guard Austin Reaves (15) defends during the first quarter during game three of the first round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs at Toyota Center.

The U.S. Supreme Court will not take up a case contesting LeBron James’s right to trademarks tied to the phrase “More Than an Athlete.” Game Plan Inc. sought to invalidate the trademarks, which are held by James’s media company, Uninterrupted IP LLC, and in May asked the Supreme Court to review the matter after an adverse ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Kalshi sued Illinois and state officials over a new piece of legislation that recently passed and would require prediction-market platforms to obtain state licenses to be allowed to offer sports event contracts. The legislation would compel prediction markets to comply with state gambling regulations and impose a tax on trades. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission previously sued Illinois in April.
The former NFLPA attorney who sued the union and others for retaliation after she agreed to testify in a criminal investigation into their actions has agreed to settle with some of the defendants. The NFLPA and its general counsel, Tom DePaso, are settling with Heather McPhee, whose December lawsuit sought at least $10 million in damages. Former NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell Jr. and Matt Curtin, president of the union’s licensing and marketing arm, are not settling. McPhee said in January that she was fired shortly after filing suit. The underlying investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice is related to the NFLPA’s relationship to group licensing venture OneTeam Partners.