A notable thing with the Olympics, as with any major sporting event, comes from people and/or organizations not specifically involved with the Games commenting on them to promote themselves. That’s not in and of itself bad, as sometimes they have relevant expertise on the subject in hand. And reasonable on-subject commentary with a brief mention of their affiliation can work for everyone.
But where it gets weirder is when those people use the platforms they’re given for particular sports commentary to directly steer the conversation to things that aren’t really related to the subject in question. This is sometimes seen with attempts to redirect attention towards their own sporting events, existing or potential. And that’s what BIG3 co-founder/CEO Ice Cube did on The Pat McAfee Show on ESPN and YouTube Friday, using his appearance to discuss Olympic 3X3 basketball to instead make arguments more suited to a wrestling promo, claiming players from his league are better and challenging the gold-medal winners to a game against all-stars from his league:
“We feel like they should have the BIG3 players in the Olympics because they’re the best three on three players in the world..
We’re so confident that we wanna challenge the gold medal winners to a game” ~ @icecube #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/tOY41rj7ll
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) August 2, 2024
A few comments from Ice Cube there, starting around 0:40:
“Of course, the NBA is over USA Basketball. That’s one thing that’s an issue with why we don’t have the best 3X3 athletes in the world in Paris. And they have this weird point system that they make these players go through, but they don’t make the NBA players go through it. So we feel like they should have the BIG3 players in the Olympics. We do have the best 3X3 players in the world, and it’s not even close.
“We’re so confident, Pat, that we want to challenge the gold-medal winners to a game. We can play right before our championship game, in Boston, August 18, we’ll fly them in, and they can play against our all-stars, and we’ll see who’s the best in the world.”
McAfee, clearly on board with this, said “Okay, sweet, I’ll put up $100,000 to the winning team.” Ice Cube responded “That’s what I’m saying, we need to make this happen.” And McAfee said “Then we can celebrate winning the 3X3 Olympics!”
Then, around 2:25, Ice Cube insists that players from his league are kept out of the Olympics by politics.
“We’ll get the players that’s ready to go, ready to represent the United States, and bring some respect, put some respect on the name, you know what I’m saying? We’re not seeing the best out there that we have in Paris, and that’s because of pettiness and politics. It seems like the guys would rather not give the BIG3 credit than bring a gold medal home. That’s more important than this pettiness.”
McAfee then closes with “Okay, well, let’s let this year’s be the thing that changes the future.”
Sports exhibitions or challenges featuring Olympic athletes certainly aren’t new; indeed, they used to be quite a big thing in the early 20th century. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with Ice Cube trying to set this up, or with McAfee endorsing the idea and offering to put money up for it.
But this is definitely a curious use of the massive platform McAfee has on ESPN and YouTube (although not the most curious use of it this week). It’s taking what’s supposedly a segment for Olympic talk and instead turning it into bashing of the Americans selected to this team and an unchecked informercial for the BIG3 (which airs on competing platforms, including CBS platforms and streamers’ social media feeds) as a place with supposedly-better choices for this team kept out only by “politics,” and especially politics incorrectly blamed on the NBA and USA Basketball.
What’s actually at play with the 3X3 basketball selections is about rules from international basketball federation FIBA. Those require competing countries to have at least 3 FIBA 3×3 competitions within their territory registered on FIBA’s digital platform, have at least one staff member with a valid FIBA 3×3 e-learning certification, and select at least two players ranked in the top 10 of their country and the other two within the top 50 (or players who have hit the number of ranking points).
Those ranking points are gained from participating in specific 3X3 events. That takes a lot of time and dedication. And that’s why the U.S. men’s roster in Paris includes podcast producer/Timberwolves’ executive Kareem Maddox, recent high school teacher Dylan Travis, and former Florida guard/G-League player Canyon Barry (Rick’s son, which is why he also shoots his free throws with the granny-style motion his father made famous) as well as Jimmer Fredette (the one player here with NBA experience, albeit with his last game there in 2019).
And yes, the U.S. men’s team is struggling in Paris. They’re 1-4 in pool play at this tournament through Friday (where they got their first win, and did so despite Fredette not being available due to injury). But this same roster won silver at last year’s World Cup. So this is not a talentless group.
Could a roster of BIG3 players, most of whom have more NBA experience than Fredette or any of these other players, theoretically outperform this current U.S. team? Sure. There are good players in that league, and unlike current NBA players, their BIG3 time means they have specific experience in the quite-different 3X3 game. (That doesn’t necessarily mean they’d beat a team of top current NBA players in 3X3, but it would likely be closer than a five-on-five game between those different leagues.)
And it’s possible that BIG3 players might wind up featuring on Olympic teams in this sport (which is very new; it only came in for the 202o Tokyo Olympics, and only three teams, not including the U.S., took part on the men’s side there) going forward. But the main obstacle there looks more like them not competing in enough FIBA events and getting up their rankings versus a “political” conspiracy to minimize the BIG3.
It doesn’t look like any current BIG3 players even made it to the 16-person training camp in February that led to this team’s selection. And that’s again likely at least partly about rankings points from FIBA events; most of the players there had experience at events in the U.S., with some also competing at world championships and on the FIBA 3X3 Men’s World Tour. So if Ice Cube really wanted to have BIG3 players featured on this team, he could seemingly encourage players from his league to go take part in those events and try to qualify for selection here.
The larger thing here is that the BIG3 in general and Ice Cube in particular have a long history of making bold, splashy announcements that include promotion for their league but don’t seem to lead to much. Those include, but are not limited to, their “for the culture” bid for the former Fox regional sports networks (now the Bally Sports-branded ones owned by Diamond Sports Group), their full-page ad asking then-U.S. president Donald Trump to intervene in their legal fight with the Emir of Qatar (while also promoting their event at Madison Square Garden), their “quarantined, reality show three-on-three tournament” amidst COVID in 2020 (which did not happen, unlike The Basketball Tournament’s event that year), and their supposed contract offer to Caitlin Clark this year. (And that’s before we get to the Shams Charania report of Colin Kaepernick investing in the league; Kaepernick’s representatives denied that, but it’s not clear how much involvement the league office had in that supposed story.)
Anyway, if McAfee wants to let Ice Cube cut a BIG3 promo and stump for a supposed “challenge” that seems unlikely to happen, he can certainly do that. But this segment featured a significant lack of information on what’s actually going on with the U.S. men’s 3X3 team and what the selection process there is, and no challenges for Ice Cube’s claims his players are being held out by the NBA and “politics.” And that fits with some of the wider questions about how McAfee and his “is that not journalism?” approach of just letting guests talk unchallenged fits with the giant platform he has, especially if this “challenge” game they spent so much time discussing doesn’t happen. (But hey, if it doesn’t, it’s going to be the media’s fault, right?)
[The Pat McAfee Show on X/Twitter]
