Caitlin Clark turned down a $5 million deal from Ice Cube’s BIG3 basketball production. However, if anyone thinks Clark’s decision to turn down that offer would turn into Angel Reese’s big payday, they can forget it.
TMZ Sports caught up with the rapper-turned-actor-turned-sports-executive at LAX recently, where they asked him if he had any plans to offer Reese the same lucrative deal they had provided Clark. According to Cube, the numbers just wouldn’t add up.
While he made sure to stress that he has no issue with Reese, he says that while the league’s sponsors made it clear that a deal with Clark would bring in truckloads of money, according to Cube, “they didn’t tell us the same thing about Angel Reese.”
Ultimately, Cube summed up the situation: “I don’t know if we can make that same offer.”
It’s important to put into perspective exactly what Ice Cube offered Clark.
The BIG3 offered Clark the deal while she was still in college. Not only would she have made infinitely more money in Ice Cube’s league (at least in terms of salary) than she would in the WNBA, she would also only have had to play eight games instead of 44.
That would seem like a no-brainer of a deal to most people. However, Clark was banking (literally) on the idea that playing in the higher-profile WNBA would lead to better marketing opportunities, which would bring better endorsements, ultimately dwarfing the amount of money Ice Cube offered her.
And she was right!
If Ice Cube had offered Reese $5 million, she absolutely should have taken it. He wouldn’t have and didn’t, because his sponsors correctly assessed that she doesn’t have the same level of marketing or branding value as Clark.
Things ended well enough for both. Reese and Clark are making millions, and so is Ice Cube, who has landed some of the most prominent former NBA stars to play in his league.
But if anyone needed more proof that Reese is not on Clark’s level, here it is.
