Friday, news broke that courtside correspondent Rachel DeMita had been fired by the Big3 basketball league.
The stated reason for her abrupt departure, according to Front Office Sports, was a video she posted on X last Saturday highlighting Caitlin Clark while she was actively working a Big3 game. According to FOS, that was the “final straw,” implying there were prior concerns about DeMita’s social media postings. However, details about the situation were scant.
On Saturday, DeMita, who was initially hired in 2024 as a well-known basketball influencer with a massive online following, posted a video explaining the situation and the reasons behind it.
“We need to address the elephant in the room, or the elephant that is currently going viral on social media,” DeMita said in her video. “The rumors are true. I was fired from the Big3. And my team received an email at 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday with a letter that essentially said that I had been terminated.
“Now, I don’t want to misquote anything, so I will just let you guys know exactly what that email said. They said, ‘It has come to Big3’s attention that Ms. DeMita was posting on her social media platforms during this past weekend’s Big3 games and promoting the competing New York Liberty vs. Indiana Fever WNBA game that was being broadcast at the same time. The league is extremely dismayed and disappointed by Ms. DeMita’s severe lapse in judgment while performing services for the league, during which time she should have reasonably known that she should have been promoting only league games. The league provided her with unique access and opportunity to be a focal point on national broadcasts, so management was completely taken aback to learn that she was posting about another league’s games while in the midst of rendering services.’
“Now, this is true. I did send out three tweets about the Indiana Fever vs. New York Liberty game during the Big3 broadcast.
DeMita added that while she posted about Big3-related content as well, she accepts the decision, though she would have appreciated more discussion beforehand.
“I did feel a little bummed that there wasn’t any discussion prior to me being fired,” she said. “However, I didn’t hear from anybody. There was no talks about it, and I wasn’t under the impression that those tweets would do any severe harm to the Big3 or anybody would think any type of way about it.
“So like I said, again, I’m not making excuses. I’ll take it on the chin. It’s my bad. I apologize for that. But I do wish that there could have been some discussion because I feel like something like this could have been easily nipped in the bud. And part of my job with the Big3 last season, the games were on X. And so I was really active on X during those games because the chat was going and I was getting involved with all of those things.”
DeMita noted that there has been speculation that there must be more to the story than that, but she says she is unaware of any reason the league would terminate its deal with her.
Neither the league nor the owner, Ice Cube, has yet to release a public statement about the move.