.BillieJeanKing spoke to WWD about her career, tennis fashion, and the importance of using your platform for change.
Billie Jean King was among the powerhouse athletes, who praised Naomi Osaka last week after she exited the Western & Southern Open in response to what the 22-year-old tennis pro called the “continued genocide of Black people.”
Recalling how women at one time played tennis in long-sleeved, ankle-length dresses, King noted how today’s tennis wear reflects how much freer women have become through the years. She knows of what she speaks. In 1988, she and Cynthia Starr wrote a book that documents the sport’s progression in the past 150 years, “We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Women’s Tennis.”
King landed her first endorsement deal in 1970 with Head, but that was only for sportswear, not racquets. Tennis fashion reflects societal changes through the years as far as women professional players getting paid, and women being able to get their own credit cards in the mid-Seventies without having a husband cosign it. All sorts of advances, such as Title IX in 1972, allowed for equal access for any federally subsidized activity, including sports.
The next generation of standout players after the Original Nine — Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, etc. — went up, up, up, according to King. Navratilova made more than $20 million, compared to none of the Original Nine making $2 million in their careers, King said.
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