Billie Jean King led way for women’s tennis
Equal prize money, founding of WTA were her doing
NEW YORK — Billie Jean King called it the year of insanity. She was talking about this year, when she has travelled around the world to promote the 40th anniversary of the Women’s Tennis Association and to publicize two documentaries about her life.
But “year of insanity” seems like a more appropriate label for 1973. In fact, “summer of insanity” would suffice.
On June 20, 1973, the Women’s Tennis Association was founded at a meeting organized by King at a London hotel. On July 19, after lobbying by King, the U.S. Open became the first Grand Slam to offer equal prize money to men and women. On Sept. 20, King defeated Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes, a victory that produced a boom in women’s tennis and a lift to the women’s rights movement.
This year, the WTA has been celebrating these milestones with a “40 Love” advertising campaign and events at its tournaments; now it is the U.S. Open’s turn.
Last Thursday, the Empire State Building was lighted pink and purple in honour of the WTA. An exhibition about the Battle of the Sexes is on display at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center throughout the Open, and a ceremony honouring the anniversary of the WTA will take place between the women’s semifinals. On Sept. 10, the day after the Open is scheduled to end, an American Masters documentary on King will have its première on PBS.
Stacey Allaster, the chairwoman and chief executive of the WTA, said, “If we had not had Billie, I’m not sure we’d be the success we are today.”
Of the achievements King refers to as “the 40-40-40” being recognized this summer, gaining equal prize money at the U.S. Open might be the most remarkable.
Consider that the Grand Slam events began awarding official prize money only in 1968. When King won Wimbledon that year, she re- ceived £750 while the men’s champion, Rod Laver, received £2,000.
The women’s rights movement in the U.S. gained significant victories in the early 1970s with the passage of Title IX and the Equal Rights Amendment by Congress, and the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade. But, as King often notes in speeches, many women could not get credit cards in their own names. The earnings gap, which the U.S. Census Bureau began tracking in 1960, was the largest ever recorded in 1973. Women working full time made 56.6 per cent of what men did. (In 2011, that figure had risen to 77 per cent.)
King had been trying to close the gap in tennis as more players turned professional in the Open era beginning in 1968. Female players struggled to make a living from the few tournaments they could play, leading the so-called original nine to form the Virginia Slims Series in 1970.
By 1973, two women’s tours were competing, making it difficult to consolidate support for more tournaments and prize money. That May, Riggs routed Margaret Court in the first Battle of the Sexes, which many viewed as a setback for the women’s movement and women’s tennis.
But with the top women together at Wimbledon, more than 60 players met in the Gloucester Hotel in London, where they voted to form an association.
At Wimbledon that year, the women had a chance to show their worth to the sport because 81 top men’s players had boycotted over a Davis Cup dispute.
“It was a great Wimbledon for women that year,” King said. “We got a lot of attention.” King, stressed by her behind-the-scenes organizing, said the court was her sanctuary. She won the women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles titles at Wimbledon. For the triple crown, King earned £3,550. The men’s singles champion, Jan Kodes, took home £5,000.
When King met with Billy Talbert, the U.S. Open tournament director, in his office in Forest Hills, Queens, she took a survey the WTA had conducted that showed fans had a high degree of interest in women’s tennis. More important, she had lined up sponsors who had agreed to pay the difference to make the purses equal.
“It was the height of the women’s movement,” King said. “I think there was social pressure to start doing things different.”
On July 20, 1973, a headline in The New York Times said, “Tennis Decides All Women Are Created Equal, Too.” Ban deodorant, a subsidiary of Bristol-Myers, donated $55,000 to make the women’s purse equal to the men’s at the U.S. Open.
Joseph G. Keinberger, a Bristol-Myers vice-president, said, “We feel that the women’s game is equally as exciting and entertaining as the men’s, and we hope that our direct involvement with the 1973 U.S. Open clearly indicates our positive position on behalf of women in sports.”
At the time, Talbert was asked if men’s players would have complaints.
“If there is,” he said, “I’ll just tell the men to go out and sell their product better.”
King had mastered selling her product. Still, she called the Open’s decision to award equal prize money a miracle.
“I really am thrilled, as a U.S. citizen, that we were the first,” she said.
In 1972, the total purse was $160,000. The men’s singles winner, Ilie Nastase, earned $25,000, and King, the women’s singles winner, earned $ 10,000. The disparity went down the scale: Round of 64 men’s losers received $400; the women’s losers got $100.
In 1973, the total purse rose to $227,200; the singles winners, John Newcombe and Court, each received $25,000, and all Round of 64 losers got $400. (This year’s Open winners will receive a Grand Slam-record $2.6 million each. First-round losers in the fields of 128 will earn $32,000.)
The other Grand Slam events were slow to close the prize gap. The Australian Open began giving equal money in 1984 but stopped in 1995, saying that men’s matches earned higher ratings. Equal purses were reinstated for the 2001 tournament. After a lobbying effort led by Venus Williams, the French Open agreed to equal pay in 2006. A year later, Wimbledon followed suit.
Despite agreement at the majors, and equal prize money at 10 other events that feature men and women, critics remain. In recent years, as the ATP Tour has pushed for all players to receive a greater share of Grand Slam revenue, some have questioned why women received the same money for playing best-of-three matches while the men play best-of-five.
“I understand why,” King said. “Right now, men are in the golden moment. It’s really about the message. It’s about leadership. It’s about leading, not following. I want us to be out front on equality.”
The WTA, the world’s most successful women’s sports organization by far, conducts 54 events in 33 countries with total purses of $118 million, up from $1.9 million in 1973. (Golf ’s LPGA Tour, by contrast, has 28 events in 14 countries with total purses of $48.9 million.)
Chris Evert was 18 when she reached the 1973 Open semifinals to earn $5,000, $3,000 more than a women’s semifinalist in 1972.
“I don’t think I fully understood the whole scene of women’s liberation, equality, what impact that really would have on women and on the future of women’s tennis,” said Evert, who in 1976 became the first woman to reach $1 million in career earnings. “At 18, I was a little too wrapped up in maybe what makeup I’m going to wear on the court and how my two-handed backhand was going to work that day.”
Evert said of King: “She had a vision. She could see 10 years down the road. At 18, I didn’t.”
According to Forbes, seven of the world’s 10 highestpaid female athletes are tennis players, led by Maria Sharapova, who earned $29 million in prize money, endorsements and appearance fees from June 2012 to June 2013. Notably, Sharapova ranked third among all tennis players in earnings in 2012, behind Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, and five women were among the Top 10.
Evert said: “I think Serena (Williams) passed the $50 million mark in prize money” — actually, more than $47 million. “Are you kidding me? I think I made $9 million in my 18-year career. Thank God for Billie Jean and that she was in our sport, not another sport, because it might have taken longer.”