Women and Sports in the United States: A Documentary Reader

RIGGS BUTCHERED BY MS. KING AS PROMOTERS SCORE A MILLION

Pioneering Women in Sport 41 y RIGGS BUTCHERED BY MS. KING AS PROMOTERS SCORE A MILLION Charles Maher Houston—Billie Jean King butchered the nation’s No. 1 male chauvinist pig Thursday night. Ms. King, among the more outspoken liberators of the tender gender, astonished Jimmy the Greek and frustrated at least a few million males by defeating Bobby Riggs—in straight sets yet—before the largest crowd in television history. Jimmy the Greek and 30,471 others came to the Astrodome to watch what Ms. King later described as a turning point in women’s sports and her own career. She had succeeded, where Margaret Court had failed, in showing that one of the world’s great female tennis players can defeat a very good middle-aged man. If that doesn’t sound like much, consider the possibility that she may also have stemmed the Niagaran flow from her adversary’s oral aperture. First indications, however, were not promising. His mouth was considerably more mobile after the match than his legs were during it. The contest was about as close as the Spanish-American War. Ms. King, like the U.S. Navy, had some difficulty in the early stages of the con- flict. But she rallied for a 6–4 victory in the opening set and thrashed Riggs, 6–3, 6–3, in the last two. When she got to the interview room, Billie Jean took off her shoes and socks, wiggled her toes, and said: “I feel this is the culmination of my 19 years in tennis. Since that first day when I was 11 and I wasn’t let in a picture because I wasn’t wearing a white skirt, I knew I wanted to change tennis.” Riggs arrived a few minutes later. “What happened?” “Billie Jean is too good,” he said. “Too quick. I got the ball past her but she not only returned it but made a better shot than I did. Too good. Too quick. She deserved to win it.” This second Battle of the Sexes was surely the most ambitious, hyperbolic promotion conceived on this continent since Barnum bumped into Bailey. From the Los Angeles Times, 21 September 1973: 2. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission. 42 WOMEN AND SPORTS IN THE UNITED STATES Seats sold for up to $100. The match was seen on national television and, the promoters said, in 36 foreign countries. It attracted about 300 newsmen—and newswomen—from points as distant as Germany, England and Australia. It also attracted Salvador Dali and such Hollywood tennis freaks as Glen Campbell, Claudine Longet, Robert Stack, Stephanie Powers, Rod Steiger, Janet Leigh, Jim Brown. Moreover, said promoter Jerry Perenchio , “there’s a sheik from a Mideast country who has his own 707 and 60 people in his party.” The 60 were said to include a harem. (“Ah,” Riggs would say. “Very chic, sheik.”) The national television rights went for about $700,000; overseas rights went for $267,000. Talk was the thing would gross $900,000 to $1.2 million, including money from the many endorsements his return to prominence has fetched him. The match must have set a record for commercial coloration. About every company this side of the Ithaca Drop Forge Tool & Die Corp. seemed involved, one way or another. Ladies’ cigarets [sic] men’s toiletries , a mint (which is striking a silver commemorative coin bearing the image of Bobby Riggs, “the emperor of male chauvinists”), a housing development (which sponsored practices), a local sporting goods chain (which paid the Astrodome $50,000 to be official sponsor of the match). Oh, yes, and there was the coincidental announcement at a pre-match news conference that Emperor Riggs is starting a chain of tennis clubs, the first to be built in the Astrodome complex. Surely, given all the Madison Avenue madness, no one would take the match seriously. No one, that is, besides Ms. King and Riggs. Billy [sic] Jean considered it important because a loss might wrinkle the image of women’s professional tennis, of which she is a principal architect. Riggs saw it as a serious thing (the match, not the buildup) because a loss might knock the Hollywood props out from under the hustle he began by defeating Margaret Court last spring in the first Battle of the Sexes. But at least nobody else would get serious about it, right? Not quite. The thing seemed to arouse a lot of sexperts. A sexpert is a man...