Fiend at Court Unplugged
In 1971 Billie Jean King was the first woman to win $100,000 playing professional sports in a single year. It was a goal that she had personally set and announced. Talking about money openly was a calculated strategy intended to draw attention to the women’s tour. It gave the media a story to follow and was great publicity. When Billie Jean King cleared the mark by defeating Rosie Casals at the last Virginia Slims tournament, it was a defining moment for women’s professional sports. Legitimacy had arrived.
In All In: An Autobiography, Billie Jean King put that number in context. She ultimately won $117,000 in 1971 following additional tournaments in England and New Zealand. That was more than all but five Major League Baseball players earned that year. Willie Mays was baseball’s top earner at $150,000. Billie Jean made more than the Cincinnati Reds all-star catcher Johnny Bench who earned $90,000. Reggie Jackson came in at a paltry $45,000.
Billie Jean King’s winnings included the winner’s purse from the US Open. The breakdown of her earnings from that tournament was $5000 in prize money, $2500 for expenses, and… a NEW CAR. The car itself is a little bit of a mystery. The New York Times reported that Stan Smith received a Ford Torino for winning the men’s singles crown but does not provide the make and model of the car that Billie Jean King was awarded. Smith also collected $15000 in prize money and $5000 for expenses, both in excess of what was awarded to Billie Jean King. It is a reasonable, but not completely safe, assumption that the cars would have been equivalent.
The New York Times ran an interesting piece shortly before the US Open started in 1971 about all the corporate sponsors that had lined up for the US Open. Numerous companies were examined in that article, but Ford was not mentioned nor was any other automobile manufacturer. If Ford donated the prizes in a corporate sponsorship bid, the company did not receive much exposure in the press.
“1968: US Open Prize Money Distribution” shared how Arthur Ashe made only $15 a day in expense money when he won the US Open as an amateur. The USLTA solution to that problem is apparent in how the money that went to the winner was separated between prize money and expenses. That distinction provided amateurs with a mechanism to accept significant compensation without sullying their bank accounts with “prize money.”
Smith’s expenses awarded by the USLTA for winning the tournament was $5000. Billie Jean King received $2500 for the same. The expense money was above and beyond the prize money amounts listed in the US Open Media Guide for that year and reported by the New York Times.
There is no indication that anyone thought to question why the men’s expense money was exactly double what was provided to the women.
- All In: An Autobiography (<-Sponsored Link), Billie Jean King, Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2021.
- Smith Beats Kodes for U.S. Open Title, Neal Amdur, The New York Times, September 16, 1971.
- Tennis, Anyone?, Leonard Sloane, The New York Times, August 29, 1971.
- From the archive: the 1971 US Open Media Guide, US Open Website, viewed August 20, 2021.
