Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Right, we should point
Speaker 1: out Game seven of the NBA Finals is this Sunday.
Speaker 1: That means the season's wrapping up in the spotlight at
Speaker 1: least when it comes to professional basketball. Will now sort
Speaker 1: of shift to some of the other leagues out there,
Speaker 1: that includes the Big Three. You know ice Cube, he's
Speaker 1: a music legend, he's an actor, he's a producer. He's
Speaker 1: also the co founder of the Big Three League. This
Speaker 1: is three on three half court basketball and it's latest
Speaker 1: season just tipped off last week. Week two starts well
Speaker 1: this Sunday. I had a chance to sit down with
Speaker 1: him to talk about the evolution of the league, the
Speaker 1: evolution of team valuations, and what's next for the sport overall.
Speaker 1: Take a listen.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's more passion. You know, getting in people's face
Speaker 2: only goes so far. You know, you got to have
Speaker 2: a passion to win and the passion to to you know,
Speaker 2: step up to the comp petition.
Speaker 3: And that's what we provide.
Speaker 2: You know, we let athletes be themselves because nobody want
Speaker 2: to see robots play the game. You know, it's really
Speaker 2: about personality, entertainment in good basketball, and so that's what
Speaker 2: we provide with the Big Three at a time in
Speaker 2: the summer where it's gonna be hard to find a
Speaker 2: good game.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, this is the first season, correct if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: The Big Three is basically focus in specific city. So
Speaker 1: before it was kind of touring around, but now you
Speaker 1: have specific teams in Chicago, in Dallas and a few
Speaker 1: other places here. What was the decision to switch from
Speaker 1: that touring format to a more traditional city based format.
Speaker 3: Growth. You know, we.
Speaker 2: Owned all the teams as far as the league. The
Speaker 2: teams were centrally owned, and we knew the brodest league.
Speaker 2: Really we had to have owners, team owners who could
Speaker 2: really help us, you know, plant flags in these cities
Speaker 2: all around the country, even all around the world because
Speaker 2: we're looking at London and Mexico City. So having owners
Speaker 2: was very important to grow the league and to expand
Speaker 2: past the teams we have to you know, sixteen, you know,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four and so on. So it's the you know,
Speaker 2: start of the you know, kind of the beginning of
Speaker 2: the rest of our lives in a way, because now
Speaker 2: we can actually really see this league grow very fast.
Speaker 1: How evaluations the individual team valuations been, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: I've seen publicly a couple of numbers throwing around, But
Speaker 1: are you seeing a significant increase in those individual team
Speaker 1: valuations based on the way you would have valued them,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, we're just at the beginnings stages of it.
Speaker 2: So you know, right now we say you can get
Speaker 2: a team for a bargain basement price, you know, compared
Speaker 2: to other franchises that's out there. And so we feel
Speaker 2: like we got the greatest upside when it comes to
Speaker 2: our business model and how things are structured with the
Speaker 2: Big Three.
Speaker 3: So you know, we feel like, you know, we're.
Speaker 2: A great bet if you want to, you know, flip
Speaker 2: or you want to are you in it for the
Speaker 2: long haul?
Speaker 3: You know, so one day.
Speaker 2: We'll be up there with the big boys and have
Speaker 2: those you know, supervaluations.
Speaker 1: So I am curious as to where you see Big
Speaker 1: Three maybe ten years from now or eight years from now.
Speaker 1: I just say, given that we're now eight years from
Speaker 1: its inception.
Speaker 3: You know, hopefully.
Speaker 2: In that amount of time, you know, you could be
Speaker 2: able to ten times twelve times what we're doing now.
Speaker 2: So you know, we do see that these franchises are
Speaker 2: going to scale up very fast, and and you know,
Speaker 2: people are gonna make a lot money, a lot of money,
Speaker 2: you know, especially if they got in early.
Speaker 3: So you know, we we do see the curve just
Speaker 3: going up.
Speaker 1: But when we talk about like the legitimacy of Big Three,
Speaker 1: and I remember when it came out, there a lot
Speaker 1: of people kind of scratching their head. Why do we
Speaker 1: need this? Why is ice Cube involved? But now you
Speaker 1: look at a league that has big corporate partnerships Procter
Speaker 1: and Gamble, a partnership with Starter. I was reading about
Speaker 1: this old we had to SEEO Red Lobster on the
Speaker 1: other day and was talking about the big promotion that
Speaker 1: they're doing with the Big Three.
Speaker 3: On top of that, you got Chris.
Speaker 1: Haynes, is just a legendary NBA reporter who's now going
Speaker 1: to make his home the Big Three.
Speaker 3: That's big deal, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But look at our history. You know, we have
Speaker 2: Hall of Fame commissioner Clyde Drexler. We have Hall of
Speaker 2: Fame coaches, you know, from Doctor j to Iceman, George
Speaker 2: Gervin to Nancy Leeberman, Gary Payton, now Michael Cooper.
Speaker 3: We got Calvin Murphy.
Speaker 2: You know, these are Hall of Fame players, who are
Speaker 2: putting a stamp on this league. Some have been around
Speaker 2: since the inception of the league.
Speaker 3: So you know, we have stampower.
Speaker 2: You know, they wouldn't be around Doctor j wouldn't be
Speaker 2: around for eight years if this wasn't something great. So
Speaker 2: we know we're you know, on the right path and
Speaker 2: we have uh we've been stamped by the greatest that
Speaker 2: ever played the game.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And so you know, it's it's really no one who
Speaker 2: can look at us and say that, you know, this
Speaker 2: is a novelty. This is something that is very well
Speaker 2: respected throughout basketball.
Speaker 1: Robert ice Cube there the CEO and co founder of
Speaker 1: the Big Three Basketball League,