September 20, 1973 - Billie Jean KIng - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

Billie Jean King wins “battle of the sexes” in tennis. No woman player was a match for him, declared 55 year-old tennis star Bobby Riggs. His overtly chauvinist claim drew an estimated 50 million viewers to his September 20, 1973 match with 20-times Wimbledon champion Billie Jean King, aged 29. In Houston, Texas’s packed Astrodome, King beat Riggs in three straight sets – 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 – and clinched the $100,000 winner-take-all prize. Despite the public jabs between them that led to this “battle of the sexes,” Riggs and King became friends until his death from prostate cancer in 1995. Although King is the recipient of numerous tennis awards, including 39 Grand Slams, she always had to push for equality within the world of sports because for many years, women earned less prize money than men for the same sport. One of the final hold-outs was Wimbledon. However, in February 2007 the managers of the world’s most prestigious tournament - the All England Tennis and Croquet Club and the Lawn Tennis Association - announced that men and women would be awarded equal prize money.

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