Nine Lifetimes with Billie Jean King

Welcome to a good game with Sarah Spain where we're trying not to judge the grunters in tennis, but we're really not fans. It's Wednesday, November twentieth, and on today's show, we'll sit down with one of the greatest tennis players of all time, one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth and twenty first centuries, and truly the goat of women's sports equality and advancement, the one.

And only Billy Jean King.

Plus reindeer games, good boys who just want to play ball, and rookie hardware.

It's all coming up right after this.

Welcome back, slices and greetings once again from Malaga, Spain.

Here's what you need to know today.

The Billy Jean King Cup Finals conclude today and we are excited to be in the building to watch the showdown between Italy and Slovakia. In case you haven't caught any of the action yet, here's how the event works. During each round of competition, nations go head to head in a best of three format featuring two singles matches followed by one doubles match if necessary. Countries get a point for each match they win two points you advance.

A busy couple days for Croy.

She was also announced as part of the league's Best Eleven and Second Best Eleven, which honors the top twenty two players in the league.

Withoon made the first team.

Saturday's finalists the Orlando Pride and Washington Spirit, along with semi finalist Scot The FC led the league with five players from each team earning either first or second team honors. Also coaching honors announced on Tuesday, with Orlando Pride coach Sub Hines earning Coach of the Year. He led Orlando to a league best record of eighteen two and six with a club record forty six goals while allowing just twenty tied for the lowest conceded goals in the league

More footy news.

US Soccer on Tuesday announced that Washington Spirit owner Michelle Kang has pledged thirty million dollars over the next five years to support the development of girls and women's soccer, with the donation helping support talent identification camps and more.

We're just gonna call it field hockey anyway. The final four is set.

North Carolina, Saint Joseph's, Northwestern and the University of Massachusetts are playing in the semi finals this Friday, with the championship game on Sunday. Friend of the Show Aaron Matson's UNC squad had a pretty uneventful journey to qualify for their fifteenth Final four in the last sixteen years. The Tar Hills open the tournament with a four to oh win over Delaware, followed by a three to nothing victory against Duke. In Pro Hockey news, the PWHL may be

The US cities on the tour.

Include Seattle, Denver, Detroit, Raleigh, Saint Louis, and Buffalo, and stops in Canada will be in Quebec City and Vancouver. The news comes after the PWHL announced that it plans to expand to eight teams as early as next season, so it's likely that a couple of these cities could get a full time team in the very near future. We'll link to the tour schedule and tickets in our show notes and also sends manifestations to places that I want to go as worked before. Wow, Vancouver, wouldn't I

Rory, short for Aurora Bori Alice.

Someone gotta start writing a new version of the song because Mikayla's almost there, you know, Lorex and Grogu and Sonny and Spenn. You get where I'm going with that. Anyway, we got to take a quick break when we come back. The Queen of Malaga, Spain, Billy Jane King. We are here in Malagas, Spain, in the BJK offices adjacent to the courts and joining us now she really needs no introduction, but she deserves one. So here's a life of greatness

It's Billy Jean King BJK. What's up?

That's pressures Sarah hard to get.

It all out that quick. There's too many things I would pick from.

Elan and I really love your show, so thank you so much.

We love to hear from you. Every time you email, they're listening.

You do your research, which is most people don't, especially young reporters. A lot of times will come and you end up just educating them the whole time.

Yeah, it's okay.

That's how you keep learning from each other, and I always learn from others. It's fantastic.

The history matters, though, to contextualize. In order to know what we're watching now, we have to know how it fits into the larger and that's the biggest thing for women's sports right now, is giving people enough information to care and understand what they're watching.

Well, this is what I always say by his story. The more you know about history, the more you know about yourself. But most importantly, it helps you shape the future. It's shaping the future, I think probably reason I love history so much, but I've always love history, even as a child.

Yeah.

So I want to ask you the most important thing first, which we ask every tennis guest.

It's a contentious question. What color is a tennis ball.

What color is it?

The ones we play with, they're probably yellow, probably well yellow gold, whatever people want to look at it, yeah, whatever they want to get an answer, it's usually yellow in our I think most tennis players would probably say yellow.

Is that right?

There is no answer.

In the old days, they were white when I played in the beginning, and then we changed in the seventies.

We're in Malaga, Spain at the Billy Jean King Cup formerly known as the FED Cup, renamed in your honor. You want it ten times in your career with Team USA. What makes this event so special?

Well, I grew up in team sports and this is a team event. And most people think of tennis only as as an individual sport.

It's not.

It's really both. There's mixed doubles, doubles, singles. I like doubles better than singles. I've always played all three events when I when they had them available, like at the Majors. And I just love playing for your country. There's there's something about when you play for your country. You're playing for something much bigger than yourself. You're representing your country where you most people grew up.

It's heavy. I mean it's good heavy.

Yeah, sure, it's a privilege.

It is.

I love it.

You know how that came about.

Yeah, we heard the story that he was open. We told it on our show. Yeah, I love that story. That's in this event.

It's a Federation Cup. It's called Federation Cup. It started in nineteen sixty three. I was on that team. I was nineteen. I was the second best player. Darling Hard was our best player, and Carol Colbo was our third player. And we had sixteen teams that were invited just to try it. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the ITF, the International Tennis Federation, and it was at Queen's Club and we're supposed to play outdoors on the grass, but it rained, so we went indoors and of course on

I look at him and give him this stare in the long rooms. Are you kidding? This is history?

Of course I love history, right, and I knew ten twenty thirty years later. If they look at the Cup and they see USA first, like hello, and so here I am. I'm eighty years old. It will be eighty one next week. And it's like if I look at the Cup, I see USA first.

And I'm like hello. It still feels good and I remember the story.

I remember being now match points and how exciting it was, and Carol and I played all week in doubles, and yet at the finals, our coach, our captain, mister Kellogg, who was a tennis official, changed it up and said, no, Darlene and Billy have to play, and it was the right thing to do.

It's like putting eg in the doubles here this year.

Yeah, so you have to put your best players.

Let's talk about this year because we got the chance to watch incredible matches between Poland and Italy and what you just mentioned about the energy and the vibes, it's so spectacular to hear drums and tambourines and chants things you don't really hear at tennis termas because of the groups.

WI I wish jennis tournaments would do that. Yeah, like the the beck of our shirts. I think we should have numbers. Actually the players do have numbers, like in Australia.

So yeah, I mean.

It's a very different atmosphere than the average tournament. But also it's it's interesting to kind of get a perspective on the state of tennis in different countries. And of course not always the best players are available to play. But this year Team USA got knocked off by Slovakia. They haven't won since twenty seventeen players. Yeah, was it just a matter of we didn't have.

The best players and I don't know why, but we're going to find out.

We know that this event this year was supposed to be in Sevilla, it ended up getting moved here to Malago, which is also the site of the Davis Cup. Is that something in the future you'd like to see is both in the same place at the same time. I know in this case it caused the creation of this incredible bubble in order to play while the men are in that original facility over there. If you had a place where you could both be in a Really I love it.

When the men and we were together. Yeah, I think it's one of the pluses we have in our sport. We started in the late teen hunts with men and women, which I think teed it up culturally, and I think that was a real blessing looking back at history, because you don't want to have to fight to start having them together and not together.

And the majors have them together. It's a better event.

It's worth a lot more money than if they're single tournaments. And I think from a business point of view, you have to look at that, how do we keep getting people excited, how do we get younger people in our sport. It's important to keep track of the average age of the spectators because like baseball, for instance, got up into the fifties and now they're back down in the forties. They made some changes, made it tighter. We need to think like that. And tennis is tough, you know, it's

Was a rude awakening.

It is a child, because well, look at the scoring. I think it should be one, two, three four. How do you get new kids in the game. I mean they come to watch and I've never been in tennis. And my coach starts saying, well, let me explain the scoring. It's fifteen love.

Thirty the I know forty five, right.

They go, No, I go and I'm eleven years old, And I said to him, this is the stupidest, great English, the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Now I know, I'm like a lot of kids. I don't come from tennis. My family's on in tennis. And if you are in tennis as a child, you still want to make it fun. Yeah, And I think when you start tennis you should be put on a team.

Just put them on a team.

They can be a great make it less individual less in the beginning, because it's about relationships, and the best relationships I still have today probably from the players I played Federation Cup with or Billy Jinking Cup with.

Yeah, and it's so great to see the teammates sort of cheering each other on.

And I imagine if you had the Davis Cup and the Billy Jean King Cup together, not only could you have them occurring simultaneously in their current iteration. But then you could have that one last game of mixed doubles, one of the playing each other.

I'm just listen, I want to change the scoring, Billy. I'm try changes as big the troubles.

You have to have the two teams. It would be tough part.

But the Italian men came last night. Yeah, yeah, no, I say, guys came over to watch them.

It's been a very cool scene, not only the tennis but also the recognition of Rafa here in Spain as he's retiring, and then the activations, the food trucks, the brands, everybody getting involved in.

It was the fan fest, that's yeah, the fan fest.

It was really cool to see, like the ELF activations or both inside the tournament where you're watching them get the fans excited and having dance offs and playing music and stuff. Let's just helping y, let's help some help some stuff up. But they also had these really cool activations outside. And you know, you've been fighting for investment in women's sports for years and I'm wondering how different your brand relationships in twenty twenty four. Are brands that

Well, there must they really do help promote it better. And the ones we had days, I must say Philip Morris was amazing.

I don't smoke.

I went nuts when we got them, and I end up loving every one of them. Are still friends within that anybody who's still alive, because they really cared about us and really helped further our mission. And that's what we're finding with ELF and the other sponsors. Game Bridge has been amazing. Greenbridge is our main sponsor, and they're the reason we get equal prize money with the men. They're very big on equality. And then they also have

I've be gone to Fortune, I've gone to Forbes. I every time I.

Go, I go, You've got to have a sports part of this because sports business, especially women is just now in its infancy of really taking off and exploding. I mean, we were at four percent media content and then five were kind of got excited. Right now, we're fifteen and I think we're supposed to be at twenty five by next year.

There's more money.

I think we can maybe go up to a billion dollars a minute at two point seven billion, I think.

And we're on our way now, We're just on our way. Yeah.

Yeah.

The women. I was in Australia for the long and I were there for the World Cup of Soccer. Yeah, I know. I always has dandy football. I'm alga to say football and.

I say footy now and then it sounds like a real insider.

Foot is that? No, that's Australian rules.

Well, in the US, the US women say footy because they know that people will roll their eyes at football, but they don't.

Like to say soccer.

If you say footy in Australia, it's really came from footy, came from Australia with Australian Australian rules football. Yeah, so when they say footy, they're not really being accurate. It's fun though, Yeah.

So we're watching all this growth around women's sports, and we were recently together at the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the women's.

Sports Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and you want to know.

You founded it back in nineteen seventy four.

The videos looking at the decades of both the mens of women athletes, but also what was going on socially and politically during all those times, was really powerful to watch. And I'm wondering, when you look back at the fifty years that have passed, are you more excited about how far we've come or are you more disappointed that we're fighting some of the same battles still?

Probably both, But I always look forward. I've always been somebody I read history and know the past because I know want to shape the future, and so I'm always in the future. I mean, if you talk to Alana and she'll say, oh God, Billy's always thinking about where we can go, what we should do, how to make

I think that's a mistake. I think you're more powerful.

I think one thing we have going for us culturally is that we've had the men and women together forever.

I think it makes us stronger.

And I always said to them, it's not what we can do to do on the court, but what we could do together off the court to make this world a better place.

This is, you know, this.

Is just a little spect Every sports a spec really, but sports are microcosm society. They tell you what's happening, and women's sports tells you a lot about where women are. And we've got a long way to go. I think we're probably gonna go backwards for a while, and women have to stand up and say what they want and need,

And what happened. The Giants, the rival.

You know, they don't get to pick every time in the draft with them, so they chose them and he played ten years.

I was a picture.

If you played ten years on the Saramanchisco Giants baseball team, you get to be part of their Hall of Fame. So Randy's my RJ or whatever. Moffatt, it's our birthday. It's up, you know, it's up on the outside of the building, the inside of the building. So I loved finding where his photo is and the plaque on him.

So you'll make an exception for the giants with him, but other than that, it's dodged all the way.

When he went with the Giants, I was giants with him as soon as he left him back to Dodger.

Not only a fan but an owner. You're like, am I going to root against your root for your rival, but I'm going to own it.

No. But it's good because it's women. We're gay.

I mean, you know, they're trying to have more inclusion. Yeah, and they're sending very positive messages and we are.

Seeing this like real, I think see change in the last even just a couple years for women's sports. And I wonder what surprised you the most.

I'm not surprised. I've been waiting, so I'm always waiting and I'm like, finally, finally, come on, we can do this. I think the number of women's sports. People are investing in us finally, I mean investing. They think they're going to get a return on.

That opportunity, not support, not a cause.

Not you know, a charity like we're going to try to be nice and help you girls, which is usually what we had to deal with. And I think when we started our tour back in nineteen seventy one, that was that was a true brand investment helping women's tennis, and we were by far the leaders golf. The LPGA started in nineteen fifty with thirteen members players.

They started it and their way ahead.

But in nineteen seventy one, Kathy Whitworth, who was number one, made I think around forty thousand, and I made I told my former husband Larry, I said in December of seventy I go, you know what, I'm going to try and make one hundred thousand next year because maybe if I can make that money, people will notice our tour and start to follow us. Because everyone understands money. Whether you're a teacher or factory worker, a billionaire, it doesn't matter.

I was really tight. I was in Phoenix.

I remember everything, and but about killed me because we made eighteen hundred dollars.

When we want a tournaments, a lot of tournaments to get done.

I got that.

And we had one tournament that had forty thousand dollars in Houston at Gladys Hellman, who's responsible for getting the sponsor, and we signed a dollar contract with her nine of us in nineteen seventy and this is nineteen seventy one, and she held a tournament for forty thousand. I don't think she knew what she was doing, but I did because I think if I can win that, that's ten thousand. Wow,

A lot of promotions. That's all we did.

We signed every autograph until the last person left. We did media six o'clock radio shows, two o'clock in the morning. If we had indoors, I would be talking to a magazine person.

I mean, and that's the case for women athletes a lot of times still to this day. It's not only do you have to be the best at your sport, but you have to help sell the tickets, promote it. Not the very highest level of tennis, for instance, but oh you look at like PWHL players, that's the first year with this year, but I mean hockey players the last couple of years, even before the p WHL, they had to be the best player in the world. Yes, sell tickets, do media from the morning till night of

What's next? You are eighty eighty one next week, you're not slowing down? What keeps you going? Instead of saying, Okay, I think I'm good, I'm going to relax a little bit.

Nothing's changed since I was a baby. I mean, I don't know if you know my epiphany story. I was told yeah, And I was at the Los Angeles Tennis Club. I've been playing tennis one year, and I just looked around that kind of daydreaming, and I thought, you know, everyone wears white clothes, play with white balls, and everybody plays as white, and where's everybody else?

And then I started thinking, you know what tennis is made. We're global sport, We're all over the world. This is you know. I'm like, this isn't amazing because a lot of sports are just us.

And I thought, wow, this is an opportunity, and I wanted to make the world better. And I already knew at eleven I was a SEC. I mean at twelve, I was a second class citizen. I knew it eleven actually, but I also knew my sister's a color, I knew my people with disabilities. I knew they were much worse

It and influence. You just knew that there was some power being great at something.

When you ask kids today, you go, what do you want in them? Be an influencer?

Yeah? I know, it's it's depressing.

So it's very depressing. I go, what does that mean?

Yeah? They go, you know, learn a skill, kid, learn an instrument?

There are They think that is being a skill And then they go, well, how many followers?

All?

I have one hundred and followers. I'm like, you need a little more than so. Yeah.

I mean I think there is your through line clearly, and anyone who knows your story knows that it's been your entire life since you were ten or eleven, looking around and thinking what isn't right here?

And how do I fix it? And I wonder when you're looking around, you know.

We spoke for my podcast in twenty twenty one, and you said your biggest dilemma was a lack of time you wanted to have another lifetime to keep fighting, start over, keep going.

I want nine lifetime.

Yeah, I want a hundred.

It'll be fine than you.

But I already feel that way as well.

And sometimes I look back and think, oh, man, I wish i'd already been more aware of things even twenty years ago, to start fighting even earlier. And for you, what are your priorities right now? What's top of the list to keep going and doing well.

I'd like to make the you know not I, but we would like to make the Billy Jing can come better and better, get more countries, even more than one hundred and thirty seven, because there's probably two hundred and ten. I think when the ITF the International Tennis Federation, there's a federation in every country, and that's grassroots for the kids.

So there's more places that could be playing an end. So I want to get better.

And tennis is amazing sport. I played all the other sports first, and I realized when I started playing that I could hit one hundred balls in five minutes.

I played shortstop, sooptball. Of course, we had to.

Play softball, not baseball at that time. And then I figured, I'm up to bat one every nine times, and I can hit a hundred balls in tennis less than five minutes. And yet as a shortstop, you're considered you get the most action in the infield, right, And I probably this is.

Clearly a metaphour for your life. I'm sure you understand this. You're like, I know what I'm saying. I'm touch the ball stop all you were like, oh, I don't get to touch the ball enough. In tennis, I get to hit a hundred balls, and in life you're like, I gotta do one hundred things.

I got to hit one hundred. Yeah, it's it's it's a story for your life. I mean, I love you.

I love that you're still going and I love that you're not settling down because your influences is unmatched in this space. And I literally jokingly call you the Forest Gump of women's sports.

If they made a movie, you.

Would pop up telling Julie Foudy and the ninety nine ers how to get started. You would pop up telling the p w HL, I'm gonna help launch this league, talking to Cammi Granado and the hockey player.

I mean, every story I hear. Well, we asked Billy Jean King, and that's how we got going.

Well, you know where we met though, we met at the Women's Sports Foundation dinner, the gala. Every year, I've met every person you mentioned. And Angel rorigueiros I was a total superstar in than any Winter Olympics. And she's one of my shoe rolls. I've got so many shoe ros I love them sports in this field of endeavor, and now I've learned of all the different sports you play. Now I've got a whole new I'm going to learn a lot more.

But it's just that's where the reason, one of the reasons I wanted to start that was for networking.

You have to people have to put this in perspective. We had no phones, we had no social media, we had nothing in those days. So how do you get the athletes together? So what we did, even at the dinner the day before, we got all the athletes together. So they could exchange their names and addresses, and all of us started talking about our sports and how we get help, and I said, you've got to help more

Sport, change the whole landscape.

Yes, because one affects the other, one helps the other.

And we've seen for years, we've used tennis as this example of like, how do we get more women's sports to be like tennis, where there's equal prize money, where the expectation of going to see the top women's players is as exciting, if not more so, than men. And doing that in other sports is a little trickier for a number of reasons, but it's given us something to aim for because of the work that you did way back when.

Because women's professional tennis, although they had men's pro tennis on a contract, proleuce to call it for years, and Susan Longlan was really the first pro and back in the twenties or was it late even before the twenties, but she was our first superstar in the sport.

Man or women. She was it. When you go to Wimbledon and.

You walk, you get a seat in center Cory. The reason they have that center court is because of Susan Longland and to a lesser extent, Bill Tilden, and she had sold so many tickets at the old Womann Club down the street that they had to find land to build a bigger place just to accommodate ticket sales. But she's the reason they wanted to come to see Susan Longland. The way she dressed, the way she plays. She was

As good as the guys?

I said, are you kidding me?

And I go, they're seventy eight years old. We're twenty eight and they go, oh, I never thought about it like that. I said, we're very young. Business.

Another thing, I was sitting in the stands with David Stern, who was the commission He's a market he was a marketing genius.

And the NBA.

Jerry Buss told my former husband that the NBA was going to go under in the late seventies.

Did they ever talk about that? Of Kars Stocks?

So what happens in those days they had tape delayed finals.

So you could watch it two weeks later or whatever.

So what happened is we got Magic Johnson, Irvin he likes to be called, and Larry Bird in the in the NCAA finals for the colleges.

But everybody thinks it's because of them. No, it's not. It's because of them.

And David Stern from the business side, in the marketing, he was a marketing genius and he got it, and he said, we're going to change this fast forward. I'm sitting with David Stern, who loved tennis, played a lot at the US Open and the President's box. I'll never forget this day. The WNBA had just getting started. I turned to David. I said, David, you have to promise me one thing. He says, sure, What is it I'm thinking?

He said, sure? Oh good.

Please do not let the WNBA fail. You have to promise me you will not let it fail because we've already had a few leagues, and that always happens in every sport. By the way, they act like it's only women's sports. That's how No, if you look at men's sports or women's sports, you look at the beginning of time, it's just that men's sports is so much older, or even.

Recently XFL is in its third generation.

It's just it just takes time and you're going to have you know, some are going to fail, but they still help the sport go forward. It's like a stepping stone. It's like the other women's ice hockey leagues helped the PWHL. They did so I'm thankful to everyone every generation. But the point is that people never talk about how men's sports is in trouble financially, but they always talk about our failures. And that's very much boy girl.

They talk about talk.

Aboutout men's potential versus blaming girls if there isn't an instant return on investment.

And so it's really irritating.

So once you start to explaining these things, but David turning me says, I promise I will not let it fail.

And guess what, it's still going.

We have to take a quick break when we come back more With Billy Jean King.

On our last podcast, one of the things we talked about was the terrible difficulty you had in coming out, and it was terrible and expectations for you as your sponsorships and people's view of you, and.

I lost all my sponsorships.

Yeah you and already twenty four hours. This is just like a slow little drip.

It was bath. But I knew that would happen.

During the seventies, I was told if I'd talk about what I was thinking and feeling, which I wasn't sure who I was. I was trying to find myself my sexuality on it, and they said, if you say one thing, we will not have a tour, so.

That made it really easy. I go, I'm not going to do that.

I'm tolding everyone up by having to keep myself.

But eventually, but eventually, knew it wouldn't matter because one individual isn't going to make that kind of difference. Right well, in the beginning they think it is.

I hope that's the case even when the individual as president, because I'm curious what you think another Trump presidency might mean for the LGBTQ plus community.

I'm worried about.

I'm not sure going backwards.

I don't know. I have no idea. And the Congress is all Republican now, which you know, to get the gold Congressional Gold Medal, you have to have both parties. You can't get that without both. It's very interesting process. I didn't know any of this. I an individual. When an athlete's never gotten one, which I find extraordinary, but a lot of male athletes, I'm sure have it. But it's a bipartisan and I.

Think that's huge. That makes me happy because.

I'm more of a little person that everyone thinks I'm really far left, and I'm not. It's just an assumption, but I'm not. I'm much more down the middle than people realize, because you've got to be pragmatic.

It's clearly how you've achieved a lot in your life is your ability to appeal to the allies on a side that might not see your point of view and convince them to come a little bit further over and join you. I think it's I think we need both people. We need the ones out front that are loudly pushing for extremes that maybe the people in the middle don't think we're ready for yet, and then we need the

We deserve this, and Susan in the middle saying, how do we do this?

How do we get agree with that? We don't just deserve anything, not deserve No. No, women get up and go we deserve more money. We deserve athletes to do that. Men and women, all both genders, are all genders, and they'll all get up and say we deserve No, you don't.

You don't even know about the business.

What if they do deserve it, though what if the occasion if you can improve it business wise?

Generally, that is not girl.

They deserved equal pay because the Federation is dedicated to the growth of women and girls and boys, and this is fair advantage to totally.

If the Niners hadn't started it, or Pino would have not made it okay or been a leader, and followers choose leaders. Leaders don't choose followers, so you get the Niners starting. God, Julie was funny help king or she calls me Julie Foudy was the heart and soul of the US team back in the nineties, and she says, what are we going to do? And I said, well, are you willing to give up something to get something?

She goes, what do you mean?

I said, well, athletes always want everything. And they use the word I deserve when they don't know the business. They have no idea what they're talking about, like even getting the equal money from the soccer now.

And I think the.

Women deserved it because they do better than the men. But why did they do better than the men? Because soccer is a new sport in our country, because if you look at other countries, the men are doing much better.

Okay, But the difference also is a federation which is a nonprofit versus like no one in the w NBA says we deserve NBA money. They say we deserve ex percentage or we deserve investment from media and outlets, whereas the soccer demands were specific to the fact that they were supposed to be supported equally by their own federation.

You're making me have a lot more questions on which is great. That's why that's why engagements.

Do a show on it bill.

That's why engagement's really important.

Let's do a show.

Do you think the soccer players or the tennis players are any athlete really understands the economics.

I know they don't.

I think the soccer players do just solely based on knowing Bekeru, who is running the women's national players that budgets on the should know about. Well, there's association, the executive committee. Those players spend years in there creating the CBAS more so than I think most men know about their leagues. Because they are so important to the fight for their own they don't have to worry, well, well, the men are making millions regardless, and so they don't

So I think actually the highest levers.

Levels of women players, you know, way more about the economic opportunities at play. You think they have to be in those meetings for years.

Yeah, I bet just soccer players. I wonder how many probably you got to talk to your tennis players.

You know, you got to get them in those meetings, you know.

You we talked about how you've been fighting for this stuff for such a long time.

Racialino and Sue invested their own money, have they.

Yeah, Sue's a part owner of Gotham.

That's it. I knew that, and then to watch the other night.

Now that she's that, I think she just became a part owner of the Storm as well.

Oh okay, yeah great, Yeah, I'm not sure about Pino yet.

See that makes me happy because that's what we want.

Yeah, they just retired, so I think they're looking around trying to figure out, well, that's what their next movie.

I think they're fantastic super watching her play because I love my first love.

Yeah so much to tell you.

I want to talk about how you were able to fight for some of these things before most of the people around you were ready for it. You know, you were fighting for women's equality during a time ripe with misogyny. You were fighting for racial quality when racism was far

Or I constantly get players to I did. I constantly got players together and with the hockey league. When kindle Quin came to Elanomy said help, would you help us start a new hockey league, one that truly treats us properly. I'm looking at her like she's five two. By the way, finally I'm taller than someone. From a moment, I go Elana and I look at each time and go, okay, we'll try. It took seven years, but Mark Walter is the reason. He and Canberra, his wife are the reason

Event.

It's probably a little longer term than men maybe, but he believes in it. And the Walter Cup, if you look at it, it's one pound heavier than the Stanley Cup. But everything Walter.

Cup, which is the trophy that the PWHL winning team brought.

It is beautiful and everything on it has a reason, Like on the bottom it's the crashing of the glass ceiling. It's got every team on it. It's got four little things around the hockey stick because four people get to the final. I mean, everything's got a reason and assembled to it, which I love. And then when the players won, you know, the actually Minnesota one, which is odd because

They go, are you kidding? Give me that trub the above.

I mean, it's thirty seven pounds above their abother hand, they're scanning all around showing everybody. Everybody's clapping and going crazy.

Was sold out, I mean it was amazing in Boston and I. They passed you know, this trophy to each player and they hold it up and I'm like, holy come only I'm so old, Like I'm so weak, but I just did it.

Sounds like you were almost surprised we all were the success, Like because when I asked about.

We weren't sure. We don't know what you never hear.

From your lifetime of advocacy. You jumped in with Kendall coming to and you're like, I don't know, I don't know if we could do this.

That's happens.

Attendance records, broken, enthusiasm, off the charts, expansion already in the talks.

Yeah, that's how you got to do it.

I guess right.

You got to take a leap as a leap of faith.

But without Mark, it wouldn't happen. It takes millions, of millions and millions of dollars.

Yeah, that's the unfortillions part.

Yeah no, but the players have no clue.

You need power money.

The players know it takes a lot, They don't really They need to get into the thick of it, you know, the real budgets and all that, and that's where it's helpful. And when you start to own something. You do start to you know, you start to you start to worry about that. And but the PWHL is definitely way ahead of the game plan.

We're probably in our fourth year.

Yeah, we thought we'd be taking four years to say you are, and we've been selling out in five to ten minutes in the Montreals to Toronto's. You know, it's a religion in Canada, but it's the parents and the children. Everything I do, I try to, I try to. I want a child and girls as particularly because we're way behind to have the dream.

I always explain it that way.

I want them to have the dream. And the kids come over and talk to us and they're crying a lot now, and fathers, a lot of fathers go, you know, you see that role over there. That's my three daughters and I brought them and they just they're so excited now they have a chance. They can see themselves as maybe being a pro. Because what happens in hockey. The the brothers and sisters go to play, like when they're three,

I used to use that to differentiate between like hockey and acco.

And I go, okay, whatever you guys want. I mean, I just keep asking.

Keep me up to day. You're on top of it.

So anyway, well, I'm going to ask you about We're gonna do more on the after we're finished, chair, I'm going to ask you more about the budgets and the money of the soccers. I still haven't got the answers I want. I keep asking everyone.

I've got the right person think for you. I think you But back to hockey, I think you're right.

What happens is at a certain age they basically the girls will play on a boys team for a while now an adventually they'll get moved to you kicked off, right, But you know.

What the girls say to their parents, I want to play, yeah, I don't want to be a bigger skater. And they it's so adorable, they're so cute, and they have all these signs that come with and they bring their babies that are less than a year old and they put the big, you know, ear things over there so they don't get hurt because the noise is deafening at hockey

Said, can you get the top players together?

It's got to do with tennis too. You have to have the top athletes. If you don't have the top athletes, it's not going to happen. And I said, can you get them? I said, you know Canada and the US are always killing each other in the Olympics and the World Championships. You know that border that's below Canada and above us. I know it divides you, but in this it is going to be the opposite. It connects you. I said, can you and they.

Got it together? No, but they got it.

I said, you guys would be together when it's the hockey league.

You have to think of that as a connector not a divider. And they and I came up with it just talking to them, and they got it. And that's why you keep learning those so you just keep learning through these different processes.

But what's great is that you have the lessons from so far back and you keep reapplying them any ways, as they stay the same and as they change. You know, I want to ask you as we let you go here, since I keep talking about you being the Forrest Gump of the last eighty years, who is the next Billy Jean King? Do you have your site set on someone that you're going to demand of them? Hey, I need you to pick up the mantle for the next forty fifty years.

I think Soon and Rapino trying to do that. I think in their own way.

I think I heard Rapino in an interview says she wants to be a broker. That's basically what we're doing.

Can we ready to do it?

We need to have dinner together. Feel's working on ESPN all the time and doing all that.

And yes, I do talk to her, and she's very good when we talk, and if we have a goal, she gets on it.

She doesn't she doesn't mess around. She's and she's very bright. You know, she could have gone to medical school.

Yeah, Standford, stand Fanford, girly.

And she decided no, it would be soccer. I love my soccer number eleven center.

What do you call mid midfield? In the old days, we were half you know, Like.

I'm just trying to get you to call someone out right here, right now so that they feel the pressure.

That is well doing it okay, But I need girl women of color to get in there.

Uh. And they got to think about it. You've got to think in the terms of we.

You cannot say I or I'm just going to help blacks or I'm just going to help whites.

You cannot do that.

You got to help everybody. Like I'll give you a perfect example with the hockey. I said, I will not help you unless you get more girls of color and ice hockey it's terrible. And there are some clubs of girls of color. I said, you've got to get them included. You've got to get more clubs or whatever you think is going to make it work. But I will not help you anymore unless you promised me that before we start.

They said, we promise.

I said, okay, let's go, because we have to open up our sport to everyone. And whatever sport you're in, you need to be inclusive as much as you can. And some sports are much harder tennis is all white. We've had to work hard, you know. We had THEA Gibson in nineteen fifty seven, she won her first Wimbledon. She won the French in fifty six.

She was my Sheiro.

I'll think Gifton was my absolute first Sheiro in my life. And I was thirteen when I saw her play and if you can see it, you can be it. And when I saw her, because that's what number one looks like. I know I'm a white girl and she's black, but I saw what it looked like as far as the ability, how well you have to play to be number one, I went, oh, I don't know if I can ever be that good. But my parents always told us that every generation gets better.

I go, God, that means I have to get better. How am I going to be better than that? You know?

And I just remember having this discussion with myself as a child at thirteen, going oh, but she was fantastic. And then I got to know her and actually included her in the Women's Sports Superstars and she won a lot of money, which is good. She didn't make a lot of money, so I always tried to help create opportunities and then we had an exhibition in nineteen sixty and I invited her. I said, are you still playing well enough not to be embarrassed? And she said, no,

And she went, really, I'll be there. Are you kidding? I need the money.

Well, you've set that example throughout of inclusivity in a way that really is a model for everybody else. So you've given a real big job to whoever follows you, whether that's Suing Pinot or Founder or whoever are.

They are, and those three for sure. But which woman of color? I was always hoping Cocoa Gough. Yeah, because she gave a great speech when she was about sixteen and in Florida.

I heard her and I thought, oh, she's the one.

She seems ready. I don't know yet, but she seems like a prime candidate.

Big thing is most players don't want to do athletes don't want to do this is truly learn the history and truly learn how to be inclusive. Athletes today say I all the time. I found the first two generations say we us, and by the third generation it's I. And if we could get the third and fourth and fifth and sixth generations to say we and think beyond ourselves, especially in an individual like golf, tennis and certain sports.

Do you really thinking about.

Taking your sport with you as you go forward? And I don't think most athletes, once the league's more mature, they don't take the sport with him anymore. They have to think we us, where are we going? And you can't just seep asking for things to say I deserve it. Learn the business before you ask the question, and they don't.

And they've never done that. If every player I've talked to I.

Said, did you get paid? They said, of course I got paid. I said, okay, did you ask the promoter who's worked all year for this one week and they've invested money so they could lose money.

They look at me like huh, And.

I go have you asked them how they've done? Not one player today as ever said yes, not one. That's not good. They need to know is everyone else doing all right? Are the sponsors happy? Are the young players coming up happy? Are the older players happy? Are are the people who run these events and take the risk?

How are they doing?

Because if they're not happy, they're not going to say I'm not doing this and we're not going to do something else with my life, with my money. And I don't think people understand the tenuous situation we're in all the time.

It's an ecosystem. Everybody is a part of it.

That's our great play day is everyone understand the larger ecosystems. So it's not just demanding more for the athletes, but understanding the business side. So when they demand it, it's because they and they deserve it.

Sorry, I keep Interrupting's got to stop it because I'm so excited talking with you. No, I I keep telling players you've got They always say to me what should I do? And I go learn the business and they go I said, I mean, really learn it. Go work at a tournament, or go work and work for a soccer team, or go whatever, and it's great that Bob Iger and Will o'bey have bought Angel Angel CDFC because well they're friends of ours anyway.

And I mean it's like you said, it's.

We instead of I. That's how you get stuff done. Yes, and we have to go, I know, but we have to think about others, not just ourselves.

Agreed.

Final message is a good one from Billy jin King. Thank you so much for the time.

Yeah, thanks so much, sir. It's great to talk to you you too.

Thanks again to BJK for taking the time. We got to take another break. We'll be right back.

Welcome back, all.

Right, slices, you already heard our good gameplay of the day. Billy wants us all athletes especially to learn the business side of their.

Sport and other sports.

If you've got a great resource, book, article, research study, or otherwise about any sport or league that you think we could all learn from, send it our way. Help us get edumicated, slices, send them a good game at wondermedianetwork dot com or leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two oh four fifty seventy and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. It's super easy watch a very good boy at a tennis match three out of

Absolute silence, and then you heard it.

I'm not sure if the Golden Retriever wanted to get in the game and grab a tennis ball, or maybe was trying to voice support for Team Italy or Team Poland. Either way, no shushing pups, even at a tennis tournament. Play on now, it's your turn, rate and review. Thanks for listening. Slices tomorrow, Potatoes, cheese, stares and shushes. Tales from Malaga and the Billy Jean Kingcup. Good Game, Billy Jean King, Good game, Golden Retriever, Few air quality in Malaga.

We love you, but you was Smaggi bitch.

Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network. Our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones.

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Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Emily Rudder, Britney Martinez, Grace Lynch and Lindsay Cradowell. Production assistants from Lucy Jones and I'm Your Host Sarah Spain