my next guest is a tennis player this this woman uh changed the face of uh a
female athletics there's no getting around it and athletics in general uh she has won
the wimbledon singles title an amazing six times along with every other major tournament in the
world she will be competing in the virginia slims tournament at madison square garden february 28th
through march 4th we're very happy to have her here tonight please welcome billy gene king
thank you very much
thank you very much for being here and i i mean it when i i spoke to
you earlier i have been watching you play tennis and and have enjoyed you
both on the court and uh what you stood for off the court as well foreign
when i said that you have changed the face of female athletics is uh that's probably too
limiting i mean you really changed an entire sport didn't you i don't know i wonder what muhammad ali
would have to say about that we'd have to ask him he'll tell me yeah but i mean you went in with the
attitude that women for doing the same job ought to be paid the same as men the purses ought to be
equal right no actually i don't believe in that i believe in that you can do the best you can do
in your marketplace i don't really compare notes uh that way i just try to tell the women let's do
the best we can do and do get the most money we can and just like all of you in your jobs
you go to your boss and say i want more yeah all right you you were the first tennis player first
female to make a hundred thousand dollars athlete first woman first woman athlete yeah 1971 and that
took about 19 tournaments to do that because we made about 1800 when we went to tournaments in
and in the virginia slims championships the winner will make 125 000
in one week so uh i'm a couple of generations too early i think now we uh uh no no no no no don't no
we uh he said he's been watching me a long time i said that's because you're my age yeah well i
probably am your age you know i mean how old are you i'm 40. well i'm 36. so it's pretty
much baby oh yeah i'm a baby sure i would like to be 36 again i think i had a lot more how are your
knees they all right they're fine nice and scarred they're okay are they really like zippers on them
and stuff oh lots of zippers railroad tracks um did you hear about this terrible ear injury
what happened well some guy came in here with a whip it was just the ugliest thing we've ever seen
cauliflower he's been boxing that's right but you know when when uh i first started watching
you play it was it was you margaret court uh yvonne gulagong he's dating himself and
uh virginia wade were the three or three or four that i remember and now there's just uh
like every six months there's a new dozen uh young females playing tennis that's true we
have about 2 000 uh women who want to play on the virginia slim circuit every year and
we can only really provide an opportunity of about 300 a week maybe 150 to 300 just depends
on the situation so we have jenny tournaments certain places and then we have the virginia slim
regular circuit then we have qualifying tournaments and then you know you start at your
local level and you go up that way and that's the way you make it yeah when when you guys were first
starting out to like you mentioned you got 1800 bucks was there something like appearance money
that we hear a little bit about that was before that that was in the 60s when they used to say
they call you on the phone say hi billy this is a promoter usually it was an official you know
saying oh i'm gonna have a tournament how much money do you want and in those days if you could
get three hundred dollars or a huge paycheck would be like eleven hundred i mean you'd really cashed
in and plus airfares and expenses that was a big deal yeah so then when we had open tennis in 1968
that changed all that we got rid of the hypocrisy and the dishonesty and it was over the table and
then in 1971 with the virginia slim circuit we had an opportunity to play week in and week out and
that first year we played for like 350 thousand dollars and in 84 this year there will be about
11 million dollars for women's tennis so that gives you an idea of the growth yeah i want to
ask you a little bit about the recently we had the 10th anniversary of your match in the astrodome
oh yes yeah let's talk a little bit about that uh with the bobby riggs and the billie jean king
but bobby's not here by the way he isn't or is he we got to go away for a commercial we'll be right
does back does that song have anything to do with you actually it doesn't it doesn't no philadelphia
freedom was written for me uh by elton john back in 1975 i don't know if you remember
it's been a few years hasn't it absolutely remember it but that was written about
uh your world team tennis franchise that's true but uh elton we were writing uh in the
limo to one of his concerts and he said to me i'm gonna write a song for you
and i'm gonna dedicate it to you and i said oh sure fine you know i'm thinking sure no way jose
and he said no i am honest and i said gee that's really nice i mean i was really
overcome by it and i thought there's no way it'll happen yeah so next thing i know is he comes with
a tape recorder to denver we're playing a match he says i got the rough mix i want you to hear
it i want you to hear it he's like a little kid i mean he's wearing our you know he said come on you
saw he went in this old filthy dressing room in denver and he played the rough mix he says how do
you like it i said what am i going to say i hate it i loved it i mean that was great and he says
you see that part where there's that beat every time you get angry and yell at umpires that's
what i want you to think about when you hear that so i was uh did you get any money off the song
i don't deserve it well you were the inspiration for it he could if now if the guy would do it
but if he was a gentleman he was and by the way i'm gonna see to it that you get a little cut up
i think i'll tell him but he just got married so he's you know i mean now in 83 it was you and the
30 000 people in bobby riggs in the astrodome the 73 73 i'm sorry that's all right and uh
looking back on that what do you think of that now is that something you're proud of were you
oh i'm very proud of it but i think the one thing that match did is put tennis on the map not just
women's tennis and i think that was fantastic and i think we had the biggest number of participants
in tennis in 1974 and i think that match had a lot to do with yeah that really
a lot of new people got involved in the game and stayed in the game because of that match
and i have a lot of people come up to me and say i hate you i lost money or i love
you you made me some money and i know exactly what they're going to talk about yeah you're
terrific good luck in the garden and good luck with whatever you do i love the band i just like
to say thank you thank you village billie jean king ladies and gentlemen we'll be back with uh