On March 8, 2019, it was reported that the Yankees had reached a deal to re-purchase Fox's share in the YES Network for $3.5 billion, with Sinclair, Amazon, and The Blackstone Group holding minority shares. MLB also confirmed a $10 billion bid, seeking to use them to bolster the income of its small-market teams. It was also reported that month that Ice Cube and LL Cool J (via Ice Cube's 3-on-3 basketball league Big3—which had Fox as its initial broadcast partner) were also preparing a bid of around $15 billion. Big3 stated that it wanted to expand the channels to include programming covering "broader cultural and political topics" of local interest alongside sports. In April 2019, Big3 filed a complaint with the Department of Justice and FCC, accusing Charter Communications of attempting to "undermine" its bid by threatening to not carry the channels if it won the auction. Liberty Media owner John Malone has an ownership stake in Charter; the company denied Big3's allegations. The final round of bids were due on April 15, 2019, with bids having been in excess of $10 billion or higher. Liberty and MLB were reported to have partnered on a joint bid, Big3's bid contained $6.5 billion in debt and only $3 billion in outside funding, while Sinclair had re-entered contention in a joint bid with Apollo.