Ice Dice & BIG3 Have Massive Authorized Headache With New Lawsuit For Allegedly Hawking Faux Possession Stakes

Ice Dice’s BIG3 basketball league is being sued by NFT buyers claiming the league broke guarantees about possession rights.

Ice Dice is going through a category motion lawsuit from NFT consumers who declare his BIG3 basketball league made guarantees it by no means stored, and the timing couldn’t be worse as he’s making ready to take the league public.

The go well with, filed in California Superior Court docket final July however simply publicized this week, alleges the league engaged in misleading and fraudulent advertising and marketing when it bought two tiers of NFTs again in 2022.

Patrons of the Hearth tier paid $25,000 every whereas Gold tier buyers dropped $5,000, and each teams have been promised one thing that sounded unbelievable on the time: precise possession stakes in skilled basketball groups.

Lawyer Joseph Sakai, representing the plaintiffs, laid out precisely what went unsuitable.

“Our shoppers invested substantial sums primarily based on representations that they’d obtain significant possession rights, together with workforce administration choices, season tickets, and monetary participation in future workforce gross sales,” Sakai advised Decrypt. “The league promised these rights would final perpetually. They barely lasted three years.” Again in 2022, Ice Dice himself hyped the chance, telling media shops that providing followers possession via NFTs was “a no brainer” and that he was “all about altering the sport and shifting the paradigm.”

In 2024, BIG3 bought 4 franchises to outdoors buyers for roughly $40 million, and the plaintiffs declare they by no means noticed a dime of these proceeds regardless of being promised monetary participation in workforce gross sales.

The league basically downgraded NFT holders from house owners to common ticket holders, based on the go well with.

The league is pushing for personal arbitration fairly than permitting this to proceed as a category motion, which might be far dearer for BIG3 to defend.

BIG3 has been battling authorized points for years.

The league, based in 2017 by Ice Dice and Jeff Kwatinetz, has confronted a number of lawsuits, together with a $1.2 billion case in opposition to Qatari buyers and a $250 million go well with from the Champions Basketball League.

The league presently has eight city-based groups and options Corridor of Famers and former NBA stars equivalent to Joe Johnson, Mario Chalmers, and Dwight Howard.

The league introduced final month that it’s going public via a S### merger with Graf International Corp at a $290 million valuation, with the deal anticipated to shut in This autumn 2026 beneath the ticker image TONT.

The plaintiffs’ legal professional has indicated he’ll amend the lawsuit to handle the IPO announcement, which may complicate Ice Dice’s path to the general public markets.