It is hard to convey the degree to which the sports world was seized by the Battle of the Sexes. On September 19th, 1973, the day before the match, newspapers around the United States put together full-page spreads to preview the long-awaited tilt. Punters scrambled to lay last minute wagers: Bobby Riggs was a 5-2 favorite, and it was increasingly difficult to find a Billie Jean King backer to bet against.
Celebrities flocked to Houston. George Foreman would hand over the winner’s check. Bombshell Mamie Van Doren met Riggs on a talk show and became an ardent cheerleader. 69-year-old painter Salvador Dali turned up, for some reason.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said a Baltimore saloonkeeper. “Everybody’s talking about it. I mean people who don’t even like tennis–people who could care less about Ron Laver or whatever his name is. A serious tennis match could never get the public as excited as this thing has.”
Laver himself–Rod, not Ron–wasn’t crazy about it. He feared it was turning his sport into a burlesque.
He wasn’t wrong. But… for a gimmick, it was sure a glorious one. While the 51,000-capacity Houston Astrodome wasn’t going to sell out, more than half of the tickets were already accounted for. The Battle would set a new attendance record for a tennis match, and the television broadcast was expected to reach as many as 90 million viewers.
Rocket Rod, alas, could never.
So much of the spectacle’s success was owing to the goofy charisma of the diminutive, motor-mouthed Riggs. Even the mission-focused Billie Jean couldn’t always help herself: “I like him and I hate him. He is so ridiculous. Sometimes I laugh, but mostly I get furious.”
Bobby promoted the match–and promoted it, and promoted it some more–with a steady stream of male chauvinist patter: Women are at their best in the kitchen and the bedroom. (Billie Jean said she didn’t mind the bedroom part.) He claimed membership in WORMS: the World Organization for the Retention of Male Supremacy.
The irony was evident, even to Riggs. Women’s tennis, he said, “has come a long way, baby, and playing me isn’t hurting either…. Tennis has been the benefactor all over the world. It just happens to be good for Bobby Riggs, too, but that is only incidental.”
What made the match so compelling was that the outcome was truly uncertain. All the social relevance and celebrity appeal in the world couldn’t manufacture a must-watch out of an obvious blowout. Hundreds of the top men tennis players could beat Billie Jean, and a handful of them had done so over the years, in practice. Riggs, with his funky dink-ball game and the wildcard of his advanced age, could bewilder King–as he had Margaret Court–or could be overpowered by her.
The Court result, combined with a general faith in the savviness of the 1939 Wimbledon champion, made it tough to bet against Bobby. But several details tilted the forecast in the other direction. The Sportface surface was a low-bouncing one that would favor a dashing volleyer over a geriatric lob machine, especially over the course of a best-of-five-set match. Riggs had coasted through his preparation, chugging vitamins but letting his overall fitness sag from its Mother’s Day peak. Billie Jean had Margaret’s loss to learn from, and she’d know exactly what to expect.
Expert predictions were, well, predictable. Few pundits broke ranks with their own gender. The New York Times ran side-by-side pieces presenting each player’s case, by Neil Amdur and Grace Lichtenstein. Pancho Segura, one of the finest tennis minds in the game’s history, sided with his buddy Bobby, producing the X’s and O’s to explain why the veteran would pull through. No less a figure than Althea Gibson picked Billie Jean, who would “run Bobby’s little legs off.”
King said over and over again that it wasn’t (just) about the money. She was ready to put half of the human race on her back and carry them to victory.
Could Bobby muster the motivation to counter Billie Jean’s sense of responsibility? Long-time pal Lornie Kuhle couldn’t imagine the Happy Hustler losing what was, at its core, the greatest tennis hustle of all time. “That’s why Bobby’s going to win,” he said. “There’s really too much money on the line for him to lose.”
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This post is part of my series about the 1973 season, Battles, Boycotts, and Breakouts. Keep up with the project by checking the TennisAbstract.com front page, which shows an up-to-date Table of Contents after I post each installment.
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