Industry Weekly

[Visionary]

Game time: Ice Cube has plans for a big Vegas weekend

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Ice Cube performs at Rehab on Sunday.
Amy Sussman/AP

Before he even arrives in Las Vegas this week for the grand finale of his first-year Big3 pro basketball league on Saturday—and to perform at Rehab at the Hard Rock on Sunday—Ice Cube has already won the championship. His name will forever be linked to one of the biggest sports-event weekends in the history of Las Vegas.

Big3, Cube’s three-on-three hoops league featuring former NBA players reprising their hardcourt glory, opened play for the first time in June and toured the country, garnering a fair share of buzz for an unorthodox sports league just getting started. Its “final four” championship was slated for T-Mobile Arena before the ridiculously huge Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight got locked in for the same date. Fight promoters compensated Cube and his team for use of T-Mobile, and the Big3 slid over to MGM Grand Garden Arena, a win-win-win situation. That third win is for Las Vegas, which is expecting record visitation for this late-August weekend.

Cube has already proven he has no limits in the worlds of music and movies. Now he’s taking on the sports world, and he’s off to a great start and still thinking big: He recently told an LA TV station his goal for next year’s Big3 is to bring in Kobe Bryant. Ice Cube with Meek Mill at Rehab at the Hard Rock Hotel, August 27.

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