Ice Cube is pitching advertisers on his Big3 professional basketball league and positioning it as an opportunity for brands to up investment in diverse-owned properties.

The half-court, 3-on-3 professional basketball league is gearing up for its sixth season this summer. In October 2022, Big3 became the first professional sports league to be certified by ByBlack, the U.S. Black Chamber of Commerce, as a Black-owned and operated business. The certification made it a potential partner for brands that had pledged to increase or dedicate ad dollars to minority-owned media companies in response to the murder of George Floyd in May 2020.

During a recent presentation hosted by Omnicom Media Group, Ice Cube and his business partner Jeff Kwatinetz shared the story of the league, the audience marketers could reach, and how it caters to advertisers, including a fast response time.

“The access to our athletes, coaches, Cube, and our team, and the speed at which we can turn it around— clients and advertisers are not going to get that in any entertainment vehicle,” said Nikki Ambrifi, VP of sales for Big3. Last season, for instance, the league said it closed an ad deal on a Friday, and eight days later had a custom 30-second spot featuring a voiceover by Ice Cube on air. The team handles all of the league’s TV ad inventory, not CBS, as well as connecting brands to the league’s athletes.

“That’s better than most leagues, who tell you what you can get and you have to take it or leave it,” said Ice Cube. “But we want to do the cool stuff that moves the needle for our partners.”

Kwatinetz added that the league sees itself as being more entrepreneurial when it comes to accommodating specific advertiser needs. “We like to think of ourselves as a whiteboard when it comes to sponsors,” he said. “We can be flexible—from experiential to broadcast.”

The Big3 says its nine-week season, which has aired on CBS since 2019, reaches an audience that is often overlooked in the summer—basketball fans. “I love football and basketball and felt like a lot of fans like me had to hibernate in the summer,” Ice Cube said. The league, citing Nielsen data, said last season that it averaged 515,000 viewers on its CBS broadcasts (for comparison, MLS averaged 343,000 viewers last season, though the MLS had more national games.)  Almost 35% of Big3's viewers were aged 25 to 54 years old, 44% were female, and 50% were non-white, the league said. 

The Big3 also has two female coaches and a Black commissioner in former player Clyde Drexler; the NBA, NHL, MLB and NFL, widely regarded as the major professional sports leagues in North America, do not feature female head coaches or a Black commissioner.

Big3 sponsors have included Adidas, Toyota, Walmart, Burger King, Monster Energy and Microsoft.

“Cube, Jeff and the entire team are always pushing the boundaries of what a sports league can be, on and off the court. To them, diversity and inclusion are not just a part of their business; diversity and inclusion are in the DNA of their business,,” said Monster Energy Chief Marketing Officer Dan McHugh.

“We have a big megaphone,” said Kwatinetz. “We're very supportive of people who support us, and it's our job to deliver for them. We need to make advertisers and sponsors feel that they’re not just getting something because we're a Black-owned company or that we work with other diverse companies and vendors, but because we deliver.”

Ice Cube first came up with the idea of the league in 2015, when he sought a way to engage basketball fans in the summer with the 3-on-3 format commonly played in gyms and parks across the country. In 2017, the Big3 league tipped off, and in 2019, the league signed a deal with CBS, the terms of which were not disclosed.