Is the beautiful game taking its No. 1 status for granted?

It’s not a question anyone was reasonably expecting to be asked but who is going to be soccer’s Ice Cube? Not in the sense of actually rapping – hopefully Memphis Depay is the last in a long line of players “blessing” the mic – but in dragging the game into the future.

Cube is behind the launch of BIG3, a juiced- up version of three- on- three basketball, into the US market. The NBA game and its Superman- versus-Superteam, LeBron against the Warriors narrative is in rude health but still the rapperturned- actor sees plenty of room for his version too.

The BIG3 is made up of eight teams of former NBA players, with former MVP Allen Iverson the standout among them, and tours 10 US cities starting Sunday night at the Barclays Center, the home of the Brooklyn Nets. For added razzmatazz, it is set to conclude in the same venue and on the same day as the McGregor versus May weather fight in Las Vegas. Those not in the stands get to see the action on Fox.

It all seems rather in keeping with the way that sports are going. Look at the recent additions to the schedule at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games – a program shift that IOC President Thomas Bach said would make those Games “more youthful, more urban and will include more women.” Front and center among the five new sports? Three- on- three basketball, admittedly the FIBA version rather Cube’s BIG3.

Soccer at the Tokyo Games? Once again there is no place for futsal, the FIFA sanctioned fasterpaced version of the smallsided game, so it will be a return of the same under- 23 and three- overage- player format that has been in place since Atlanta 1996. Olympic soccer will stay in limbo – unlike every other event, including the NBA-approved basketball, where you get to see the very best in the world compete.

FIFA is under no pressure to give the Olympics the status of its own World Cup and let countries send their fullstrength teams because soccer is doing just fine, thanks.

The truth is that men’s 11- aside soccer is far more interesting as a consumer product than it is as a participation sport for those same viewers.

Yes, women’s soccer is growing and some of the game’s newer markets are thriving, but the world’s second- most popular sport is coming for them too. And basketball is not considering resting on its polished premium product and its two genuine superstars. Can soccer aff ord to do the same? If it does then the beautiful game might one day be looking back at a faded photo of 2017 as its glory days.

The author is a Shanghai- based writer. jmawhite@gmail.com