Billie Jean King’s entrance onto a Houston tennis court on Sept. 20, 1973, was more suited to a Las Vegas stage than a sports stadium. The 29-year-old player, ranked number one in the world, arrived atop a gold throne framed by flamingo-pink feathers and carried by four shirtless men. Her opponent, the 55-year-old former No. 1 player Bobby Riggs, arrived on a rickshaw pulled by models dubbed “Bobby’s Bosom Buddies.” This wasn’t a regular tennis match. It was the Battle of the Sexes.
The Astrodome was packed with more than 30,000 people—a record for any tennis match—and the atmosphere was more Super Bowl than Wimbledon. Fans drank champagne, cheerleaders danced, and a band played each player’s theme song: “I Am Woman” for King and “Conquest” for Riggs. Some men wore T-shirts featuring cartoon pigs supporting Riggs that read “I am a male chauvinist,” while women in the audience held signs that read “I love BJK.”
King wore a wool cardigan over her tennis dress, wire-framed round glasses, and a giddy smile. “A very attractive young lady,” one broadcaster said, his voice reaching out to the 90 million Americans watching the match on TV. “If she ever let her hair grow down to her shoulders and took her glasses off, you’d have somebody vying for a Hollywood screen kiss.”