‘Janitor at the Arena Made More’

Looking back, Diana Taurasi has some choice words for her WNBA paycheck.

In the new three-part Prime Video docuseries Taurasi, the retired basketball player is reflecting on the irony of how she made a living.

“I’m the best player in the world, and I have to go to a communist country to get paid like a capitalist,” Taurasi, 43, says of her days in which she played in Russia during the WNBA off season.

She adds: “The f—— janitor at the arena made more than me.”

To add insult to injury, Taurasi points out that she missed making milestone memories with loved ones — all to pursue “generational wealth.”

“One time, I came back [to the United States] and I was like, ‘Man, my parents have just gotten older, and I’ve missed a big part of it,’ ”she recalls. “We weren’t making that much money, so generational wealth was coming from going to Russia every year. Now we have to come back home and get paid nothing to play in a harder league, in worse conditions, against the best competition in the world?”

When Taurasi announced her retirement earlier this year after 20 seasons with the Phoenix Mercury, LeBron James was among those who offered a tribute to her talent.

“Just seeing her transcend the game, watching little girls want to play like her, her style, her flair, her bravado, you know, her swagger, it’s been an unbelievable treat,” the Los Angeles Lakers star, 40, told Time in February. “She’s one of the all-time greatest, and she will leave her mark on the game of basketball the moment she ties those shoes up and throws them over the pole line.”

Salaries in the W have been a long-disputed topic, most recently at the All-Star Game in Indianapolis.

On Saturday, July 19, players took the court for warm-ups in shirts that read “Pay Us What You Owe Us.” The athletes wore the shirts amid players’ union negotiations with the league to reach a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

The average WNBA base salary is around $102,000, while the NBA average is about $13 million, according to Spotrac’s data analyzed by Sports Illustrated and Basketball Reference.

“That’s one of the things we’re in the room fighting for,” Caitlin Clark, who was a team captain and makes around $78,000 in her rookie contract, told USA Today of the shirts. “We should be paid more and hopefully that’s the case moving forward as the league continues to grow.”