Diggins-Smith compares value to Barnes to show inequality in NBA-WNBA pay gap

As the WNBA has experienced growth in viewership, the pay gap between the league and NBA has become a talking point.

An apparent lack of support has become something many WNBA players have stressed, including the Dallas Wings' All-WNBA point guard Skylar Diggins-Smith, who compared her value to her league to Dallas Mavericks forward Harrison Barnes to justify the argument.

"I’m the highest-paid player on the Dallas Wings, and my salary is in the low six figures," Diggins-Smith said on Wealthsimple.com. "Harrison Barnes, the highest-paid player on the Dallas Mavericks, made $24 million last season. He's definitely younger than me. Do you know his stats? Was he an All-Star? I mean, it doesn't matter. But last year, I was first-team All-WNBA, which only goes to five players. I was also a WNBA All-Star for the third time."

Barnes, 26, has mostly been an afterthought in the NBA despite his handsome pay raise in 2016. On the other side, the WNBA has a perennial All-Star and top-level talent in Diggins-Smith who made $115,500 this past season, a far cry from what even the lowest paid NBA player makes on a yearly basis.

In fairness, the NBA's revenue is enormous after receiving a $24-billion television deal in 2014, which came into effect in 2016 and helped raise the league salary cap by $24.1 million. But, a portion of the problem stems from the league revenue distribution. The WNBA's negotiated percentage that the women receive isn't on the same scale as the men's league.

"Players in the NBA get about 50 percent of the revenue. For women, the percentage is in the twenties," Diggins-Smith added. "So before we even talk about base salary or anything like that, we don't even get paid the same percentage of the revenue that we bring in, which is kind of unbelievable. People try to hijack this issue and say that women's basketball may not be as interesting a game, because they disparage women in sports, period. But we don't even make the same percentage of revenue! And jersey sales, we don't get any of it. The men do. And I have had a top-five jersey for three or four years in the WNBA."