Using the $\sharp$-minimal model program of uniruled varieties we show that, for any pair $(X, {\mathcal H})$ consisting of a reduced and irreducible variety $X$ of dimension $k \geq 3$ and a globally generated big line bundle ${\mathcal H}$ on $X$ with $d:= {\mathcal H}^k$ and $n:= h^0(X, {\mathcal H})-1$ such that $d<2(n-k)-4$, then $X$ is uniruled of ${\mathcal H}$-degree one, except if $(k,d,n)=(3,27,19)$ and a ${\sharp}$-minimal model of $(X, {\mathcal H})$ is $({\mathbb P}^3,{\mathcal O}_{{\mathbb P}^3}(3))$. We also show that the bound is optimal for threefolds.