Billie Jean King won the 'Battle of the Sexes'
On this day · 20 September 1973
In a circus-spectacle showdown watched by tens of millions, the 29-year-old champion dismantled a 55-year-old hustler in straight sets.
On September 20, 1973, Billie Jean King walked into the Houston Astrodome carried aloft like Cleopatra on a litter borne by bare-chested men, then proceeded to beat Bobby Riggs at his own game.
Riggs, a 55-year-old former Wimbledon champion turned self-described male chauvinist, had already routed Margaret Court that spring and spent months taunting the women’s tour. King, 29 and in her prime, refused to let the bait go unanswered. She wore him down with patient, angled tennis and won in straight sets, 6–4, 6–3, 6–3.
An estimated 90 million people worldwide tuned in, and the roughly 30,000 in the Astrodome remained the largest U.S. crowd ever to watch tennis.
The match was equal parts vaudeville and statement. Coming the year after Title IX, King’s win became shorthand for women’s sport demanding to be taken seriously, on its own terms and for real money.
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