1973: The US Open Becomes First Major to Offer Equal Prize Money

Fiend at Court Unplugged

The USTA frequently heralds the fact that they were the first Grand Slam tennis tournament to offer equal prize money for the men and the women. Fun fact: That claim isn’t exactly true. While the US Open was undeniably the first major to award equal prize money, it really wasn’t the initiative of the USLTA that caused it to happen. Instead, it was an object lesson in organizational leadership from Billie Jean King and Gladys Heldman.

The complete story was shared by Billie Jean King in her recently released All In: An Autobiography. In 1972, the professional players on the Virginia Slims tour voted to boycott the US Open because the prize money for the men’s champion was $25,000 while the women’s winner would receive only $10,000. Gladys Heldman talked the players out of the boycott arguing that the tournament director, Billy Talbert, needed more time to raise additional cash.

Billie Jean King met with Billy Talbert immediately prior to the US Open in 1972 and told him that the Virginia Slims players would show up that year, but that most of the top women, including herself, would not participate in 1973 if the prize money wasn’t equalized by then.

Billie Jean King also arrived at the meeting with two additional aces up her sleeve. First, she had the data from the player-conducted fan survey that supported the marketing power of the women. Additionally, the women had huge drawing cards including Chrissie Evert, Rosie Casals, Evonne Goolagong, and Margaret Court. Throw in Billie Jean King herself, and the US Open would certainly have felt the sting of their absence.

Billie Jean also went into the meeting armed with money. She had already lined up a sponsor, Ban Deodorant, which had agreed to kick in $55,000 to level the prize purse. The deal was made, including an agreement to not announce the equal prize money until immediately before the 1973 US Open.

The organizational lesson from Billie Jean King is that it is important to bring more to the negotiating table than just moral high ground and rhetoric. By walking into the meeting armed with the money to cover equalized purses, the financial excuses the USLTA had been hiding behind were obliterated. It would have been hard for the organization to make any other decision.

In fact, maybe the USLTA didn’t actually make the decision at all. Billie Jean King also detailed a fascinating postscript to the story in All In. In researching the book, the editors poured through old USLTA minutes in an attempt to find exactly when the USLTA officially approved equal prize money for the US Open. As it turns out, there is no evidence that the policy was ever formally discussed or ratified by the organization.

In my best Paul Harvey voice… Now you know the rest of the story.

1. All In: An Autobiography (<-Sponsored Link), Billie Jean King, Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2021.