Ice Cube is planning to launch a “quarantined, reality show-style three-on-three tournament” for his BIG3 basketball league, according to Yahoo Sports.
The tournament will feature between 16 to 22 players from the BIG3 who have tested negative for Coronavirus. Players will be quarantined in a house, that is provided by the league. A basketball court will be built on site. If any of the players break quarantine at any moment during the tournament, they will be eliminated from playing and dismissed from the home.
The daily lives of the players and their games will be caught on camera, much like a reality show. The production crew will not stay in the same home as the players, but will stay nearby offsite.
“As long as we can protect the players, which we will do through proper testing and quarantine, Ice Cube and I feel we can give fans some safe, entertaining brand of basketball to get everyone through this pandemic,” Jeff Kwatinetz, co-founder of the BIG3, told Yahoo Sports. “Cube and I have been in the entertainment business for 30 years. This is our job. People want to be entertained with all we’re going through and enjoy our sports. We think this will help.”
In the tournament, there will be seven rounds of basketball games. Teams will reshuffle players after the first round. When a player gains three losses, he will be eliminated.
Cash prizes will total millions of dollars and will be given to first, second, and third place winners.
Cube recently spoke to “The Breakfast Club” about what his league would do in the midst of the pandemic.
When asked about what the BIG3 will do during the Coronavirus pandemic, Cube replied, “We still doing our thing. We got a contingency plan, though. We going to Memphis. We plan to come to New York.”
“We decided to have six of our games in Los Angeles, in a nice contained, you know,” he continued. “It’s not an arena. We gon make it dope though.”
So far, the Big3’s 2020 season is still scheduled to kick off on Jun. 20 in Memphis.