When Ice Cube’s BIG3 basketball league started selling NFTs in 2022, the pitch was compelling: buy a digital token, become a fractional owner of a professional basketball team. Voting rights, VIP access, a cut of future franchise sales. The kind of deal that makes you feel like a sports mogul for the price of a used sedan.
Now a pair of investors are alleging in a California lawsuit that none of those ownership perks materialized the way they were advertised, and that the league engaged in what they call “deceptive, fraudulent” marketing to move the tokens.
The $40 million question
Lou and Sally Sheward filed their lawsuit against BIG3 in the summer of 2025, claiming the league sold four of its franchises for approximately $40 million total. Here’s the thing: Fire-tier NFT holders were promised a collective 40% share of future team sale proceeds. According to the Shewards, those payouts never arrived.
The alleged mechanism for dodging the obligation is particularly creative. The lawsuit claims BIG3 renamed teams and paused original franchise operations to sidestep the financial commitments tied to the NFTs. In English: if you promised NFT holders a cut of Team A’s sale, you could theoretically avoid that by calling it Team B instead.
