Early Life and Entry Into Tennis

Billie Jean Moffitt was born on November 22, 1943, in Long Beach, California, into a middle-class family that valued athletic competition. Her father Bill worked as a firefighter, and her mother Betty managed the household. Her younger brother Randy Moffitt would go on to pitch in Major League Baseball for nine seasons, a testament to the family’s sporting genes. King first swung a tennis racket at age 11 when she took free group lessons at a local public park. She showed immediate aptitude, but the path forward was lined with obstacles that would define not just her playing career but her life’s mission.

King turned professional in 1968 after a standout amateur run that included winning her first Wimbledon doubles title in 1965. Her early years coincided with the dawn of the Open Era, a time when professional tennis was finally permitted at major tournaments. But the prize money offered to women was a fraction of what men received. At the 1968 US Open, the men’s champion earned $14,000 while the women’s champion received just $6,000. That disparity ignited King’s lifelong campaign for equal compensation, a fight that would reshape the entire sport.

Rising Star: Grand Slam Success and the Amateur Era

Before the Open Era, top players were classified as amateurs and could not accept prize money. King excelled in that system, winning multiple Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. Her first major singles title came at Wimbledon in 1966, where she defeated Maria Bueno in straight sets. She followed that with the US National Championships in 1967, the precursor to the US Open, and won the Australian Championships in 1968.

King’s playing style was aggressive and attacking, a contrast to the more graceful baseline approach of many contemporaries. She was one of the first women to serve-and-volley effectively, using her athleticism and court sense to overpower opponents. Between 1966 and 1975, she won 12 Grand Slam singles titles, including four at Wimbledon. Her career totals of 39 Grand Slam titles across singles, doubles, and mixed doubles place her among the most decorated players in tennis history. But her achievements on the court were paralleled by her growing role as an advocate off it.

The Fight for Equal Pay: Discrimination and Advocacy

By the early 1970s, men’s tennis was flourishing with larger purses sponsored by cigarette companies and other corporations. Women’s events struggled for sponsors and media coverage. In 1970, the Pacific Southwest Championships offered the women’s winner only $600 compared to $12,500 for the men’s winner. King and eight other players—known as the Original 9—signed $1 contracts with World Tennis Magazine publisher Gladys Heldman to create their own tour. That act of defiance launched the Virginia Slims Circuit, the direct precursor to the modern Women’s Tennis Association.

The fight for equal pay came to a head at the 1972 US Open. King threatened to boycott the event unless the prize money for women matched that for men. The US Open eventually agreed, becoming the first Grand Slam tournament to award equal prize money in 1973. This milestone was the exception rather than the rule. Every other major tournament still paid women far less, and King understood that winning the Battle of the Sexes would be necessary to change public opinion.

The Open Era and Prize Money Disparity

The Open Era, starting in 1968, allowed professionals and amateurs to compete together, but it also exposed stark inequality in compensation. At the 1970 Italian Open, the male champion received €25,000, while the female champion got just €3,500. At the 1971 Wimbledon Championships, the men’s singles champion earned £7,500, while the women’s champion received only £3,000. King’s public statements and organizing efforts helped shift public opinion. She argued that if women’s tennis could draw similar television ratings and attendance, they deserved equal pay. Over time, the data proved her right.

The Original 9 and the Virginia Slims Circuit

The Original 9—King, Rosie Casals, Nancy Richey, Julie Heldman, Peaches Bartkowicz, Kristy Pigeon, Valerie Ziegenfuss, Judy Tegart Dalton, and Kerry Melville—sacrificed their eligibility for established tournaments and risked fines and suspensions from the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association. Their bold move created a tour that was entirely women-run, with the slogan “Women’s Tennis: A New Era.” Within two years, the Virginia Slims Circuit expanded to 25 events with total prize money of $1.2 million. The tour proved that women’s tennis could be a commercially viable product, laying the foundation for the modern WTA.

Founding the Women’s Tennis Association

In June 1973, King and a group of players founded the Women’s Tennis Association in a meeting at the Gloucester Hotel in London. The WTA was designed to unify women’s professional tennis, negotiate better contracts, and advocate for equal opportunities. King served as the first president. The WTA’s formation gave female players a collective bargaining voice and a structured platform to fight for pay equity. Today, the WTA oversees a global tour with over $200 million in prize money across 50-plus events in more than 30 countries.

The Battle of the Sexes: A Cultural Phenomenon

The most visible moment in King’s campaign for equality came in 1973, when she accepted a challenge from former world No. 1 and self-proclaimed male chauvinist Bobby Riggs. Riggs, then 55 years old, had already defeated Margaret Court—the top-ranked women’s player—in a “Mother’s Day Massacre” match in May 1973. He then turned his sights on King, taunting her and publicly claiming women were inferior athletes who could not handle the pressure of big matches.

Background: Bobby Riggs and the Challenge

Bobby Riggs had won Wimbledon in 1939 and was a master of gamesmanship. He used the match to promote his view that women’s tennis was second-rate. He called King the “Women’s Liberation Leader” and bet he could beat her. King initially declined, not wanting to legitimize the spectacle, but after Riggs defeated Court in straight sets, she felt compelled to accept. The match was scheduled for September 20, 1973, at the Houston Astrodome, with a winner-take-all purse of $100,000—dwarfing any previous women’s prize. King recognized the prize was a gimmick designed to attract attention, but the symbolism was everything. The event was billed as “The Battle of the Sexes” and promoted with hyperbolic pre-match pageantry.

The Match: September 20, 1973

The event was a media circus. Over 90 million viewers watched worldwide, and 30,472 people filled the Astrodome, the largest crowd ever to attend a tennis match at that time. Riggs entered the arena in a rickshaw pulled by models dressed as harem girls, while King arrived carried on a litter borne by male bodybuilders, dressed in a glittering gold outfit. The match itself was tense and competitive. King, aware of Riggs’s tricky lobs and drop shots, worked out a specific game plan: stay aggressive, come to the net, and keep Riggs running from side to side. She executed nearly flawlessly, winning in straight sets 6–4, 6–3, 6–3. The final point—a defensive lob that Riggs could not handle—became an iconic image of triumph. King later said the match was the most important of her life, not because of the athletic achievement but because of what it represented.

The Aftermath: A Turning Point

King’s victory resonated far beyond tennis. It was a symbolic blow to sexist attitudes and a major boost for the women’s movement. The following year, Title IX—the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education—was fully implemented, opening athletic opportunities for millions of girls. King later noted that the match gave her a platform to speak on broader issues of equality. She became one of the most recognizable women in America, using her fame to lobby for the Equal Rights Amendment and other causes. The match also changed the economics of women’s tennis; by 1975, total prize money on the women’s tour had doubled, and sponsors began treating women’s events as legitimate investments rather than novelty acts.

Legacy and Continued Advocacy

Billie Jean King’s impact extends far beyond the tennis court. She founded the Women’s Sports Foundation in 1974, which has invested millions in grants and advocacy for female athletes. She also co-founded World TeamTennis in 1974, a co-ed professional league that promoted gender parity in team competition. In 1987, the USTA National Tennis Center in New York was renamed the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the home of the US Open and one of the largest public tennis facilities in the world. King’s unrelenting advocacy helped ensure that the US Open remains the only Grand Slam that has awarded equal prize money to men and women since 1973.

The Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative

In 2013, King launched the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative, a non-profit focused on diversity, inclusion, and leadership development. The initiative partners with corporations and educational institutions to promote equitable workplace cultures. King often speaks about the importance of “pressure is a privilege,” a mantra she learned from her father, and she continues to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights after coming out as gay in 1981. She has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, and in 2020 she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Impact on Title IX and Women’s Sports

King’s activism directly influenced the expansion of athletic opportunities for women under Title IX. The Battle of the Sexes helped change public perception, making it harder for opponents of equal funding to argue that women’s sports were not popular or competitive. According to the Women’s Sports Foundation, participation of girls in high school sports has increased from 1 in 27 in 1971 to nearly 2 in 5 today. College athletic scholarships for women, virtually non-existent before Title IX, now number in the tens of thousands annually. King has called Title IX the “most important thing that ever happened to women in the United States.” Her personal lobbying of members of Congress in the early 1970s helped secure the law’s passage and its enforcement provisions.

Modern Parallels and Ongoing Fight

The fight for equal pay in sports continues. In 2016, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team filed a wage discrimination complaint against U.S. Soccer, leading to a $24 million settlement and a promise of equal pay in 2022. In tennis itself, Wimbledon finally offered equal prize money to women and men in 2007, and the French Open followed in 2008. The disparity that King fought against in 1973 has narrowed significantly at the Grand Slam level, but it persists in lower-tier tournaments and in many other sports. King remains an active voice in these conversations, regularly speaking out about pay equity and the need for women to have a seat at every decision-making table. In 2023, she testified before the U.S. Congress on the importance of the Paycheck Fairness Act and continues to mentor a new generation of athletes who carry the torch.

Conclusion

Billie Jean King’s fight for equal pay and her role in the Battle of the Sexes remain a powerful narrative of courage, strategy, and persistence. Her refusal to accept second-class treatment transformed the sport of tennis and set a global standard for gender equality. The match on September 20, 1973, was not just a one-night spectacle; it was a catalyst for decades of progress. King’s legacy continues to inspire new generations of athletes and activists to demand fairness on and off the court. For those seeking to understand the modern movement for equal pay in sports, her story is essential reading—a testament to what one determined individual can achieve when they refuse to accept the world as it is and instead fight for the world as it should be.