Hip-hop mogul Ice Dice introduced Wednesday that his BIG3 basketball group supplied celebrity school participant Caitlin Clark $5 million to swimsuit up for the league.
Calling it a “historic supply” to a “generational athlete,” Ice Dice mentioned he’s nonetheless ready for the College of Iowa guard to answer the chance.
The rapper and actor is a co-founder of BIG3, the 3-on-3 league that pulls former NBA gamers and worldwide gamers, and confirmed the supply whereas responding to a TMZ story on X.
“We supposed the supply to stay non-public whereas Caitlin Clark performs for the championship. However I received’t deny what’s now already on the market: BIG3 made a historic supply to Caitlin Clark. Why wouldn’t we?,” Ice Dice wrote. “Caitlin is a generational athlete who can obtain large success within the BIG3.”
Ice Dice, 54, whose title is O’Shea Jackson, mentioned on X the BIG3 has already damaged obstacles by providing girls head teaching jobs.
“The skeptics laughed once we made Nancy Lieberman the primary feminine coach of a males’s professional workforce, and she or he received the championship in her first 12 months. Then Lisa Leslie received all of it in 12 months two. With our supply, Caitlin Clark could make historical past and break down much more obstacles for ladies athletes.”
Representatives for Ice Dice and Clark weren’t instantly reached by NBC Information on Wednesday afternoon.
Ice Dice mentioned on the “Pat McAfee Present” on Wednesday the BIG3 has not but heard again from Clark.
“We simply want a solution, as quickly as they’re prepared to present it to us,” he mentioned.
He added: “It is all the time 50-50 until we get a no. On the finish of the day, it is a beneficiant supply.”
He additionally mentioned on the present he wouldn’t be doing his job if the BIG3 did not discover the potential for including Clark, saying she may take the league right into a “completely different stratosphere.”
In February, Clark turned the NCAA girls’s profession scoring chief in opposition to the College of Michigan.
Two weeks after she broke that report, she turned the NCAA Division I basketball’s total scoring chief, breaking “Pistol Pete” Maravich’s report of three,667 profession factors, which stood for greater than 50 years.
Clark’s record-setting efficiency drew large tv rankings, attracting greater than 4 million tv viewers at its peak and was the most-watched girls’s regular-season basketball recreation since 1999, Fox Sports activities mentioned.
In late February, Clark introduced she is going to enter the WNBA draft this spring.
Ice Dice mentioned on X that feminine skilled basketball gamers on U.S. soil ought to have extra choices than the WNBA and may have a selection of avoiding taking part in abroad in some nations. Enjoying in Europe throughout the offseason offers WNBA gamers an opportunity to earn 4 or 5 instances their American salaries.
“America’s girls athletes shouldn’t be compelled to spend their off seasons taking part in in typically dismal and doubtful overseas nations simply to make ends meet,” Ice Dice mentioned. “And they need to have greater than only one skilled possibility within the US at a time when American professional sports activities leagues are being infiltrated by autocratic, anti-women regimes akin to Qatar. Our pathbreaking supply to Caitlin Clark demonstrates that BIG3 now provides one other selection for athletes.”
Clark scored 32 factors throughout her workforce’s win on Monday within the second spherical of the NCAA Match in opposition to the West Virginia Mountaineers.