Ice Dice & BIG3 Associate Accuse Caitlin Cark’s Brokers Of Working For “NBA Mob”

Ice Dice and his enterprise companion Jeff Kwatinetz claimed a sports activities company sabotaged their efforts to signal Caitlin Clark to their BIG3 basketball league. Kwatinetz accused Excel Sports activities Administration of by no means presenting the BIG3’s multi-million supply to Clark in an op-ed reposted on Ice Dice’s web site.

“We have now cause to consider these male brokers and executives controlling the game by no means even shared our trailblazing supply with Caitlin not to mention facilitated Caitlin assembly with the BIG3 to debate the chance,” Kwatinetz wrote. “From our perspective, these representatives don’t appear to work for a person shopper like Caitlin. They appear to work for the NBA mob, as their shopper checklist is a who’s who of NBA gamers. Can we count on them to prioritize Caitlin over the NBA – the highest employer of their most extremely paid shoppers?”

Clark was the No. 1 draft choose within the 2024 WNBA Draft. Kwatinetz prompt Clark’s brokers hid the BIG3’s supply from the ladies’s basketball star out of loyalty to the NBA, which partially funds the WNBA.

“The NBA instructions by concern, and so they be sure that their business of brokers, legal professionals, managers and networks keep in line,” Kwatinetz wrote. “And that line is to stop BIG3 success, even when it stunts the expansion of girls’s basketball. Amid present negotiations of important NBA new media offers, you may think about the strain on the NBA feeder system simply trumps any of Caitlin’s or different promising lady gamers’ greatest pursuits.”

Kwatinetz disclosed particulars of BIG3’s supply to Clark. In response to Kwatinetz, Clark may’ve earned not less than $15 million.

“Ten million {dollars} of wage over two years, a proportion of staff possession price thousands and thousands, fifty p.c of merchandising revenues from her title and likeness and possession of a BIG3 documentary with a seven-figure advance,” he wrote. “In whole, we’re speaking fifteen million {dollars} or extra to merely play a ten-game season. Whereas nonetheless permitting her to play within the WNBA.”

Ice Dice confirmed stories of BIG3’s supply to Clark in March. Clark mentioned she “came upon concerning the BIG3 factor the identical time you all did” when requested about it in the course of the 2024 NCAA Ladies’s Basketball Match.