WNBA All-Star and Phoenix Mercury guard Skylar Diggins-Smith has partnered with investment platform, Public.com to help level the playing field off the court and bring conversations about women’s pay equity, investing, and money to the forefront.
In the past, Diggins-Smith has been vocal about the pay disparity between women and men athletes. WNBA players only rake in around 20% of their league’s revenue compared to the approximately 50% the NBA players receive.
“I’m at a loss for words sometimes, talking about this,” she wrote in an op-ed WealthSimple in 2018. “It’s unfortunate that men make more money for the same amount of work, or even less work.”
She later added, “I’m the highest paid player on the Dallas Wings, and my salary is in the low six figures. [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.”
Diggins-Smith will serve as advisor to Public’s recently-launched program for NCAA student-athletes, One Team, which brings financial literacy tools and training to student-athletes.
“After doing everything I can to one-up competition on the court, I’m excited to partner with Public to level the playing field for young women of color investing in the markets for the first time,” Diggins-Smith said in a statement.
“Conversations about pay equity and the wage gap, which I’ve seen firsthand, are never easy, but I hope to inspire this next generation of investors to talk more openly about these topics,” she adds.
Public will also be giving away free stock for Diggins-Smith’s fans who start a portfolio on Public to help them begin their investing journeys.
