A Mother’s Day tennis match played 50 years ago set the stage for Billie Jean King, an athlete who made people sit up and pay attention to women’s sports.

            In 1972, the year Title IX became law, tennis player Billie Jean King ruled the world. That year, she was Sports Illustrated’s Athlete of the Year — not female athlete, just athlete, period. (Ironically, in her youth, she had been a star softball player, but her parents urged her to take up tennis, because it was considered more ladylike.)

            That Sports Illustrated title must have rankled Bobby Riggs, a tennis star of the 1930s and ‘40s. He had been ranked first as an amateur in 1939 and first as a professional player in 1946 and 1947, and in his career had won six major titles. But, as 1973 dawned, he was 55 years old and the limelight had faded.

            Certain in the superiority of male athletes and dismissive of the women’s game — and always eager for publicity — he challenged King to a match. She was 29 years old and in the prime of her career, yet she turned him down.

            He turned next to Billie Jean’s greatest rival on the court, Margaret Court. On May 13, 1973, the two faced off in a contest dubbed the “Mother’s Day Match.” Riggs gallantly handed Court a bouquet of roses and then proceeded to trounce her in just 57 minutes.

            Riggs went on to taunt the entire women’s tennis world, challenging any player who dared to a match. “Male Chauvinist Riggs” was itching for a fight.

            That was just the goad King needed to accept the challenge.

It’s Cleopatra v. Caesar

            On September 20, 1973, King took on Riggs in a wildly publicized match that ABC dubbed the  “Battle of the Sexes.” Leading up to the match, Riggs proclaimed that women belonged in the kitchen and the bedroom. King called Riggs a creep. (Riggs definitely won the mud-slinging contest.)

            The match was a huge media event, with more than 30,000 spectators at the Houston Astrodome and another 90 million people watching on television. Legendary sports broadcaster Howard Cosell called the match.

            King was more than aware that everyone was watching. She was afraid of what would happen if she lost.

            “‘See, they don’t deserve a chance. They don’t have it,’” she worried society would say. “‘They can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, and this Title IX thing, let’s keep it in the classroom and not in sports.’”*

            King made a Cleopatra-style entrance on a gold litter carried by shirtless men dressed in togas. Riggs arrived in a rickshaw wheeled in by attractive female models — Bobby’s Bosom Buddies — wearing tight tee shirts that said “Sugar Daddy.” King gave Riggs a baby pig and he gave her a Sugar Daddy lollipop.

            King beat Riggs handily — 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 — and took home the $100,000 prize money. Hers was a performance that forced people to pay attention to women’s athletic pursuits.

All the world is her stage

            But King’s influence wasn’t confined to the Astrodome. In 1971, she was the first female athlete to earn more than $100,000 in a single season. But male tennis players earned infinitely more, and King lobbied hard for parity. In 1973, due to her efforts, the U.S. Open became the first major tennis tournament to award the same amount of prize money to both sexes.

            King retired from tennis with 39 Grand Slam career titles, 20 at Wimbledon. She went on to coach Olympic tennis and co-founded the World Team Tennis League, becoming the first woman commissioner in professional sports. In 2006, the home of the U.S. Open was named in King’s honor. In 2009, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the first female athlete to be so recognized.

            “ She is the single most important person in the history of women’s sports,” said tennis star John McEnroe.^**

                And let’s not confine her achievements to women’s sports. Earlier this year, King tossed out the coin at Super Bowl LVI to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX.

            “It is an honor to stand with these outstanding student athletes and celebrate the 50th anniversary of Title IX on one of the world’s biggest stages,” she said.***

            I’d say that honor was fitting.

                                                ______________________

*  Jennifer Frey, “’King-Riggs ‘Battle of the Sexes’ of 25 Years Ago Helped Level the Playing Field,” The Washington Post (September 20, 1998), p. D-6.

** Speech at the ceremony of the renaming of the United States Tennis Association’s National Tennis Center the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center (August 28, 2006).

*** “Billie Jean King performs coin toss at Super Bowl LVI,” U.S. Open website (February 13, 2022).