Motley Fool Hidden Gems · Nov 8, 2026 · 21m · 15m saved
With Ice Cube, Founder and CEO of BIG3
Photo via big3.com
BIG3 sold its first four franchises for $10 million each and is now listing the league itself on NASDAQ under the ticker TONT. Ice Cube, founder and CEO of BIG3, told Matt Frankel, a Motley Fool analyst, on Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing that the listing opens league ownership to fans. Individual teams and clubs already trade publicly. A professional league going public on its own is new.
"If you're a fan, you're a day one fan, you should be able to participate on the upside of the league as it grows." — Ice Cube
Ice Cube co-founded the three-on-three basketball league with Jeff Kwatinetz, his manager of more than 30 years, and has run it through eight teams, a pandemic and the hunt for a national TV deal.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 21 minutes of audio, 6 minutes of reading.
Here are the 8 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
BIG3 is listing the league itself on NASDAQ, under the ticker TONT
Ice Cube puts the league at 7 out of 10 against the goal he set in 2018
The first 4 franchises sold for $10M each, and Ice Cube expects the next to sell for more
A multi-year national media deal is the piece of BIG3's revenue model still missing
Ice Cube says BIG3 overtook FIBA as the top three-on-three league within a few years
Fans should be able to own the league, not only buy tickets, in Ice Cube's pitch for the listing
BIG3 games run 45 minutes to an hour, so 3 fit in the broadcast window of 1 NBA game
1. A Fix for the Summer Lull
BIG3 started with Ice Cube's own frustration as a fan, stuck with nothing to watch between the NBA Finals and the start of the NFL season.
Ice Cube built BIG3 to fill the months between the NBA Finals and the NFL season
"I used to get... kind of like a basketball hangover when the finals was over, the NBA finals, and it was those three months of pain waiting for the NFL to start." — Ice Cube
He also wanted to keep watching NBA-caliber players, including Kobe Bryant after his retirement. He and Jeff concluded that three-on-three was a popular format with no professional outlet outside the NBA.
"There's a void in the market because three-on-three is beloved, and it's just sitting there and it needs to be professionalized." — Ice Cube
