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It's September 20, 1973 and Billie Jean King is about to shock the world. That night, the 29 year old tennis star plays maybe the most important match of her life. Her opponent is a 55 year old man, former Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs. The match is dubbed the battle of the Sexes. The Houston Astrodome is packed with over 30,000 people, the largest crowd for a tennis match in US history. And across America, 50 million more watch on television. This is the sporting event of the year and its implications go way beyond sports. At this time, the women's liberation movement is in full bloom and Billie Jean and Bobby are on the opposite sides of it. She is a proud feminist who has successfully fought for equal prize money for women at the US Open. He is a proud chauvinist who has spent middle age doing what he loves, gambling and hustling. A Billie Jean victory would take a sledgehammer to the kind of patriarchal attitudes that guys like Bobby have no problem voicing loudly in the lead up to their match. He vows to, and I quote, put Billie Jean and all other women's libbers back where they belong in the kitchen and the bedroom. Billie Jean is worried that a loss might hurt the cause women have fought so hard for. She says, and I quote, I thought it would set us back 50 years if I didn't win that match. The stakes feel high, but the two rivals understand that they're creating a spectacle and oh boy, do they play up the pageantry. Bobby rolls onto the court on his own throne surrounded by young women. The mop haired provocateur wears his signature glasses and a yellow warm up jacket emblazoned with the logo of his sponsor, Sugar Daddy. Because Billie Jean arrives in a feathered chariot carried by scantily clad men. In case you need a reminder that it's 1973. Legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell says on the TV broadcast that if she ever let her hair down, Billie Jean could be a Hollywood actress. As for the match itself, well, it doesn't quite live up to the drama leading up to it. Bobby looks slow even for his age. He makes more unforced errors than usual. His usually strong serve is uncharacteristically weak. Billie Jean takes advantage, methodically grinding him down to a pulp. On match point, Bobby dumps a volley into the net. Billie Jean has won the battle of the sexes. 6, 4, 6, 3, 6, 3. She throws her racket into the air, raises her arms and claps. Her opponent, who has spent months crowing about male superiority, jumps over the net to congratulate her, Bobby tells Billie Jean that he underestimated her. It is a monumental, empowering story. Billie Jean King has shown the world that women are not the weaker sex, and Bobby Riggs finally has been humbled. Or so it seems. But what if his humility is false? According to people who knew Bobby, his defeat may have been something that he secretly orchestrated. What if the fix was in welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. New episodes come out every Wednesday. We would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Or check us out on Instagram heconspiracypod. This episode includes discussions of gambling and suicide. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. If you or someone you know is struggling emotionally or feeling hopeless, visit Spotify.com resources stay with us for adults with
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53 years later, the battle of the sexes remains one of the most influential sports moments in modern history. In 1990, Life magazine puts Billie Jean King on its list of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century. She is the winner of 12 major singles titles, a founder of the Women's Tennis association, an equal rights advocate, an LGBTQ champion, a dedicated philanthropist and the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The US Open is played every year at the Billie Jean King National Tennis center, but to this day, her triumph over Bobby Riggs is what she's most famous for. As tennis champion Martina Navratilova puts it, she was a crusader fighting a battle for all of us. She was carrying the flag. It was all right to be a jock. Billie Jean is the hero of this story and always will be. But every hero needs a villain. Bobby Riggs is happy to play that role, at least for the cameras and for the money. It's no wonder the battle of the sexes is his baby. Bobby has always been a showman. That goes all the way back to his childhood in Southern California. At 11, he wins his first tennis racket on a bet. He picks up the sport extraordinarily fast and reaches the final of the first tournament he enters. Bobby's a prodigy. By the time he's 16, he wins the US Junior Singles Championship. As a teenager, Bobby barnstorms across the country in his car, making stops to play matches against adult amateurs. During the adventure, someone steals his clothes and wallet. But he keeps going, and by 1939 he has become the best amateur player in the world. Just a note here. These days, the four major tennis tournaments are reserved for professionals like Jannik Sinner and Coco Gauff. But when Bobby was a young man, the majors were played by amateurs. That meant no prize money. That June, Bobby makes it to the final of the French Open. Later that month, he learns that bookmakers in London have listed him at 251 odds to win Wimbledon. He figures that it's time to place an audacious wager on himself. For the bet to pay out, he must win the men's singles, men's doubles and mixed doubles titles. I should point out that these days this would never fly. Tennis players aren't allowed to bet on any sanctioned matches, let alone their own matches but this is a long time ago. Nothing is stopping Bobby and oh boy, does he hit it big that July at Wimbledon. He wins the men's singles, men's doubles and mixed doubles championships. The trio of victories pockets him $108,000 in gambling winnings. If you adjust for inflation, that's about $2.6 million today. Bobby, who is 21 years old, lives it up and promptly blows all of that money betting on horse races and playing gin. His hunger for action is insatiable, though it doesn't seem to affect his tennis career. In 1939 and 1941, he wins the US singles title at Forest Hills. If you don't know, that's the precursor to the U.S. open. During World War II, Bobby serves in the Navy and afterward he makes hay as a professional tennis player, winning the U.S. pro singles tournament three times. By the 50s, Bobby's days as a top ranked tennis champion are over. But his days as a world class tennis hustler are just beginning. Bobby is a master manipulator. He often looks like he's giving his all when he's really not. He calls this staying in the barn. By staying in the barn, he can do things like lose a set or two in order to coax his unsuspecting opponent into upping their bet. Then when his opponent takes the bait, Bobby jumps out of the barn, comes back furiously and wins the match in the cash. Naturally, Bobby also becomes a great golf hustler. Like a lot of high rollers, he occasionally associates with men who are, let's just say, connected. He golfs for money against the likes of Jackie the Lackey Cerrone, a Chicago mobster who later goes to prison for skimming profits from a Las Vegas casino. Jackie the Lackey works for Sam Giancana, a notorious Chicago mob boss at the time. Bobby's teenage son Larry is caddying for him. Larry notices Sarone and his friends trying to cheat by doing things like kicking his father's ball. Bobby never raises the issue, he telling his son that these are not the kind of guys you want to mess with. In those days, Bobby seems to live a charmed life, the kind of life you might be envious of or that would make you roll your eyes. In 1972, his wealthy second wife divorces him and gives him a million dollar settlement. He does not invest that money sensibly. He gambles on just about everything he can. Cards, horse races, football, his own senior circuit tennis matches. Around this time, Bobby has an epiphany. It's the 70s and the women's liberation movement is crystallizing. This is a chance to cash in by making a heel turn. So at a press conference in February 1973, he issues a challenge to women's tennis superstars Margaret Court and Billie Jean King. Play me in a match and take home $5,000. At the time, Court is the top ranked women's player in the world and the winner of 18 of her last 25 tournaments. She accepts the challenge despite repeatedly telling reporters that women's tennis stinks. Bobby trains hard for the clash with the Court, and the sports books in Vegas have him as the heavy favorite. Before we continue, I just want to point out that several of Bobby's friends claim that his chauvinism is a put on. His first tennis coach was a woman. They say he's playing the part of a sexist pig to drive up interest. In his match Against Court on May 13, 1973 in Ramona, California, he defeats her 6261 and pockets a $10,000 prize. The nationally televised match becomes known as the Mother's Day Massacre. Afterward, Bobby takes the opportunity to call out Billie Jean, saying I want her. She's the women's liber leader. She can name the place, the court and the time, just as long as the price is right. After Bobby easily defeats Court, Billie Jean knows what she has to do. Agree to play Bobby and beat him. Billie Jean says that a loss would ruin the women's tour and affect all of women's self esteem. The boxing promoter who stages the Muhammad Ali Joe Frazier fight in 1971 helps set up the battle of the sexes. He offers a $100,000 prize to the winner of the match and ABC outbids both NBC and CBS for the broadcast rights. At 29, Billie Jean is in the prime of her tennis career. She's already won 10 major singles titles and finished number one in the year end rankings five times. She also cares deeply about the treatment of her fellow players. In 1972, she wins the US Open but takes home $15,000 less prize money than the men's champion. After her victory, she says she won't play in the tournament the next year if the prize money isn't equal for men and women. Taking a stand works. In 1973, the Open starts offering equal prize money. That year she organizes a players union and helps form the Women's Tennis Association. Needless to say, Billie Jean King is not intimidated by Bobby Riggs. At a closed circuit press conference held in August 1973, they spar verbally with their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks. She says that when she's done with Bobby, they'll have to scrape him up off the court. And he says, Billie Jean, if it'll make you feel better, I'll be glad to wear a dress for for our match. Billie Jean jokes with Bobby, but takes him very seriously as an opponent. She trains for the match like her life depends on the outcome. Bobby, on the other hand, goes into shameless self promotion mode. He films TV commercials, conducts interview after interview and parties on a brief break from the circus. He sits down with 60 Minutes. When journalist Mike Wallace asks him why he gambles, Bobby replies with this, when I can't play for big money, I play for little money. And if I can't play for little money, I stay in bed that day. Curiously, one thing Bobby doesn't do in the lead up to his match with Billie Jean is train. This baffles his friends and family. They'd watched him prepare maniacally for Margaret Court, but not this time. Bobby's son Larry is so frustrated with his father that he refuses to travel to Houston for the match. He even tells his dad that he's going to embarrass himself. Was something strange going on with Bobby today? I am speaking with someone who can help answer that question. His name is don Van Natta Jr. And he's an investigative reporter at ESPN. His bombshell article from September 2013 called the Matchmaker tells the real story of the battle of the sexes. The piece explains why Bobby might not have been motivated to train to face Billie Jean. It turns out that he may have had, well, ulterior motives. That's what the article posits, that Bobby threw the match. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. And doing something small can have a huge impact. When I'm out of town, I have a house sitter who watches the house and the pets. And when I come home, she's always left freshly baked cookies, which I don't ask her to do, she just does. And it is so nice to open, open that door and smell those cookies. Recruit people who like to make an impact like that at ZipRecruiter. Try it free at ZipRecruiter.com theory it shows the most interested candidates first, even letting them say why in their own words. Try ZipRecruiter and meet great candidates who'll go the extra step for your job. 4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free today at ZipRecruiter.com theory that's ZipRecruiter.com theory ziprecruiter meet your match on ZipRecruiter
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This episode is brought to you by ADT.
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- [19:59]
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When every second counts, count on ADT. Visit ADT.com to learn more. Don Van Natta Jr. Has broken a lot of big stories in his Life. He spent 16 years at the New York Times investigating everything from the crash of TWA Flight 800 to President Bill Clinton's impeachment to the 911 attacks to counter terrorism. He was part of two Pulitzer Prize winning reporting teams. Don tells me that he joined ESPN in 2012 to write stories that he felt like he wasn't reading as a sports fan. The Matchmaker his piece about the battle of the sexes is one of those. We are so excited to welcome him to the show. Hey Don, thank you so much for joining us. Why do you think the battle of the sexes still resonates today?
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I think it's because it was easily one of the most iconic sporting events in American history. It captured the imagination of the American public in an almost unprecedented way. This is just an exhibition tennis match, but there was incredible media coverage all through the weeks and months leading up to it. Basically because it's the oldest story going. It's man versus woman on a tennis court. A 55 year old man, Bobby Riggs, male chauvinist pig who had a lot of women hating him. And then billie Jean King, 29 years old, a tennis champion, ranked number two in the world. And so much was riding on this match. The social consequences. People forget it. In 1973 women needed a man's signature to get a credit card. And this Battle of the Sexes was the perfect title.
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Before you got to work on your story about the battle of sexes. Had you ever thought that there was a chance the match had been fixed?
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I bought into all of the legends and the lore surrounding the match and had no idea, hadn't even heard whispers that it might have been fixed until I got this tip.
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The tip Don gets is about an old source of his. The source is Hal Shaw. Can you tell us a little about who Hal Shaw is and how you got to know him?
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Hal Shaw was a golf pro in Tampa, Florida, and I got to know him reporting and writing a book called Wonder Girl about Babe Didrikson Zaharias, probably the greatest all around woman athlete of all time. That book was published in 2011. And Shaw worked in Tampa for Babe Didrickson and her husband, George Zaharius, at the Babe Didrickson golf course. They owned a golf course in Tampa. And so in reporting that, I talked to Hal about his memories of Babe and her husband and was struck then. I think he was probably in his early 70s when I first got to know him, was struck by his memory, how sharp it was, how he remembered, incredible details. But he said nothing to me about the battle of the sexes during that. It wasn't until early in 2013, a couple years after Wonder Girl was published, that I got a phone call. And it wasn't even from Hal. It was from a friend of his who I also knew in Tampa, who told me that Hal had a story that he had kept a secret for nearly 40 years, and he was ready to tell it, and he wanted to tell it to me.
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When you sat down with him, I mean, what were you thinking? It must have been kind of crazy being like, what is this secret?
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Well, I didn't know at first. So I live in Miami and he lives in Tampa. And so I drove up, I had a couple of stories I had to finish up in the spring of 2013, but I drove up to Tampa and the plan was to sit down with him and have a couple of meals with him in Tampa. So over lunch and dinner and spend all day with him, you know, he told me this, which really sounded almost like a preposterous story about mobsters from Chicago.
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But if you recall from earlier, Bobby is known to associate with mobsters, including his golf buddy, Jackie the Lackey Cerrone. Okay, so what was the story?
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Back in late 1972, the final week of 72, or the first week in 73, Hal Shaw was working as an assistant golf pro at the Pomacea Golf Club in Tampa, Florida. And the story that he tells is late one night, past midnight, he's in the bag room repairing clubs, and four men come in to the pro shop and sit down around a circular table and start talking about this plan that was brought to them by Bobby Riggs. Now, the men were were some of the most notorious mobsters in American history.
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Shaw recognizes three of them. One of the men is Frank Ragano, a mob lawyer who's a member at Palmacia. Another is Santo Trafficante, a Florida mafia boss and Ragano's client. A third is Carlos Carcello, who runs things in New Orleans. Shah doesn't recognize the fourth man. So what did they discuss that night?
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They were talking very candidly about this proposal brought to them by Bobby Riggs, who they said openly owed them about 100,000 doll and gambling debts. So Riggs was a notorious gambler, loved to bet on things he could control, like when he kept his game in the barn playing tennis or even golf. He was an excellent golfer and won a lot of money on the golf course. But he also bet on things he couldn't control, like sports. So he was betting with illegal bookmakers in Southern California, running up huge debts to the mob, according to these mobsters. And they said Riggs brought them a proposal, that he was going to try to set up two exhibition matches in 1973 with the women champions Margaret Court and Billie Jean King. And Shaw recalls very specifically, they said he was first going to play Margaret Court or try to, and if he did, he would beat her. And then if he could get a match with Billie Jean King, he would roll over, tank, and let Billie Jean King win. And so they were saying openly, look, if that happens, obviously we can offer really fat odds on Riggs in a Billie Jean King match and make a lot of money. And what Riggs wanted in return for that plan was his gambling debt erased. And also, Shaw recalls some money put in a bank account for him in England.
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So how exactly would that benefit the Mafia? Well, in those days, the Mafia controls the illegal sports betting market. If they know the outcome of an event in advance, they can offer even bigger, more enticing odds on the favorite. This is known as a perfect fix. In this case, Bobby is the favorite. If lots of people bet on him and he loses, the mob makes money. Oh, and one more detail. Halshaw hears the four men say that Bobby has asked them, as further payment for his services, to deposit a sum of money for him into an English bank account. So what is Halshaw's reaction to hearing the mobsters talking about These plans.
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He's scared to death. He's in the bag room, he's looking through sort of a diamond shaped window with these mobsters talking candidly about this thing. And then he doesn't tell anybody. And then Shaw just watches like the rest of the world. All the things that he heard the mobsters discuss came true. There's one other key detail that he told me, and that is that when they agreed to sort of do it, at first the mobsters were like, can we even get enough betting action on an exhibition tennis match? And, you know, shouldn't we even agree to this? But when they finally agree to do it, they say, all right, well, we'll put our guy in Chicago in charge of this. And so they mentioned a man in Chicago who Shaw couldn't remember. But it ended up being an important detail in my investigative work because there was this sort of Chicago connection of who was going to engineer the fix and who they were going to assign to make sure that basically, Riggs kept his promise that he was going to throw the match with Billie Jean King.
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If that happened, I'm gonna come back to the Chicago connection. But first of all, Don, how did you go about corroborating Hal Shaw's story?
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Yeah, so, Carter, one of the things that I did do, I sort of do like what detectives will do sometimes. They'll ask a witness to repeat the story multiple times. And I did do that with Hal. You know, he first told me this story at lunch, and then we talked about it more later in the day. And then at dinner, I asked him repeated again, talked to him the next day, and he said it with such detail each time and consistently. So for that, that passed sort of the first test, right? That I believed him, that I believed he was telling the truth. This is not something he made up. And so, yeah, you have a tip from a 79 year old guy saying that he kept this a secret from everybody, including his family, for all these years, all these decades. What do you do with it? The first thing I did is I just sort of immersed myself in everything I could read and find about the battle of the sexes and tried to become an expert on match itself.
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So you watched the match again closely, knowing what how told you. You talked to dozens of people who knew Bobby well. They had suspicions because they knew Bobby's history with gambling and hustling. But seems like there was one interview that really unlocked the story over dinner with two people. Right. Can you tell us who they were?
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Lornie Kuhle was Bobby Riggs's best friend, the executor of his estate, and somebody who cares very deeply about the Bobby Riggs legacy and Larry Riggs, who is Bobby's son.
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And when Lorni hears what you're up to, he's angry, but he still agrees to sit down with you and Larry for a meal at an Olive Garden.
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Lornie was in a really foul mood, and I could tell did not want to do the interview. But Larry was very friendly and jocular and, you know, and we're having dinner, and I'm trying to smooth things out with Lornie and make sure he'll, you know, do the interview the next day on camera. And suddenly Larry mentions these mob guys from Chicago that kept visiting his father in the weeks leading up to the battle of the sexist match, and that he didn't understand why these guys kept coming to see his father. He was already concerned his father wasn't working out and preparing. And then suddenly there's these mob guys, and he knew they were mob guys because Larry Riggs had played with his father with some of these same guys in South Florida. Bobby played cards and golf with guys in the Mobile going all the way back to the 1950s. So he knew mobsters in South Florida, he knew mobsters in Chicago. And one of them is somebody that Larry Riggs actually met, a guy named Jackie the Lackey Therone, who was a mobster in Chicago, a hitman who Bobby knew. And he knew the guys coming to outside LA where Bobby Riggs was, as associates of Jackie the Lackey Sorone, obviously, that's this massive moment in the reporting, Carter, because I had heard about this Chicago connection from Hal Shaw, who didn't speak to Larry Riggs. And suddenly I've got Larry Riggs saying, yeah, there's mob guys visiting my father just a week before the match. And Larry Riggs said he asked his father, what are these guys doing here? And Bobby said, I've got some business with them. Don't worry about it. It's none of your business. Don't sweat it. But there's something I'm doing with them, and it doesn't concern you.
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What a revelation.
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Yeah. So that was this kind of eureka moment in the reporting where there was this connection. The funniest part about it was lornie said, that's B.S. larry. Don't tell him that. He's winding you up. And then as I'm pulling out after the dinner, and they did. Lornie did agree, reluctantly, to still do the interview the next day. I see Lornie, who's about 6 foot 4, towering over Larry Riggs, who's like his father, short, like 5 foot 8, and putting his finger, you know, pounding his finger in his chest and lecturing him. And clearly Lorni did not want there to be any discussion of these visits. And, you know, for me, look, this was never going to be proven 100%, but certainly circumstantially. It was a big moment in the reporting.
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Speaking of circumstantial evidence, there's plenty of it. So let's recap. We have Bobby's history of gambling, hustling and palling around with Mobsters. We have 79 year old golf pro Hal Shaw's story in late 1972 or early 1973. He overhears mob guys talking about Bobby setting up and tanking a match against Billie Jean King to erase his $100,000 gambling debt and that a mobster in Chicago will help orchestrate the fix. And we have Bobby's son Larry saying that in the weeks leading up to his match with Billie Jean, mobsters from Chicago visited his father. But the thing about circumstantial evidence is that it's not ironclad proof of anything. Hanging out with mobsters doesn't mean that you're in cahoots with them. The question still remains, did Bobby really throw the battle of the sexes?
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Evening. Buyer's remorse.
- [33:11]
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Buy a new car. I'll be moving in.
- [33:14]
C
Let's get started.
- [33:15]
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Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.
- [33:19]
C
You what?
- [33:19]
B
Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it.
- [33:23]
A
So there's no.
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No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyers rejoice.
- [33:28]
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I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it.
- [33:32]
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Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our 7 day return policy@carvana.com this episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for from a browse to a bike ride this summer. Find more on Facebook.
- [34:09]
A
We're back in September 1973. Now it's the night before the battle of the sexes, and Bobby is staying in the Astroworld Hotel in Houston. A friend of his, the retired tennis champion Gardner Malloy, visits Bobby in his leopard patterned room. Bobby looks like he's gained weight. He's enjoying the company of several women, and he's drinking. When Malloy asks Bobby why he's partying the night before a match, Bobby says that there's no way Billie Jean can beat him. In the morning, Malloy warms Bobby up on the court at the Astrodome. That afternoon, just hours before he's about to face Billie Jean on national television, Bobby sets up shop at a tennis practice facility close by. A dog on a leash is tied to his ankle and he holds an umbrella in one hand. People are lining up to play him for $100 a game. Bobby doesn't seem worried at all, and neither does Las Vegas. Professional gamblers there are betting heavy on him. Few people are putting money on Billie Jean. Just a note here. Though Bobby has a history of betting on himself, there is no way he could have gotten away with doing it at Vegas casinos in 1973 without raising suspicions. The tennis world also predicts that Bobby will win handily. The experts assembled on the ABC broadcast, including a young Chris Evert, say so. Before the match, the players present each other with welcome gifts. Bobby gives Billie Jean a giant sugar daddy lollipop. Not to be outdone, Billie Jean gives Bobby a live pig. But when the action starts, Bobby doesn't even look close to the same player who steamrolled Margaret Court. Billie Jean thinks he's nervous. The man nicknamed the Happy Hustler seems to mope around the Astrodome court. He's slow. He doesn't attack. Friends of his wonder if he is quite conspicuously keeping his game in the barn. At one point, someone in the crowd actually yells, looks like Bobby bet on Billie Jean. After taking the first set, Billie Jean is shocked that Bobby hasn't put up much of a fight. But she's sure he isn't throwing the match. He wants to win. She says she can see it in his eyes. Don Van Natta Jr. The journalist we spoke to for this episode, re watches the match through the prism of what Hal Shaw has told him. While breaking down the tape, he notices things he didn't before. Don notes that Bobby, who normally has a strong serve, misses almost half his first serves. He double faults to lose four important points, and he makes comically bad unforced errors. Some of his shots don't even reach the net. Adding insult to injury, the normally gregarious Bobby doesn't look like he's having any fun in the End. Billie Jean cruises to a straight sack victory. In the press conference afterward, Bobby drops the chauvinism and praises Billie Jean. He calls himself the biggest bum of all time. He also pointedly calls for a rematch, claiming he would have given Billie Jean one if he had won. She refuses. Late that evening, Bobby is despondent. He soaks in an ice bath and thinks about drowning himself. He tells his son, this was the worst thing I've ever done. When Don hears that story, he's immediately intrigued. What does Bobby mean? Is it the worst thing he's ever done because he threw the match? Or is it because he didn't train and lost fair and square? Bobby spends the months following the battle of the sexes in a state of depression. Though his newfound notoriety has made him a celebrity, he makes self deprecating appearances on Laugh in and on the sitcom version of the Odd Couple. None of this is terribly surprising. He has, after all, always been a ham. In 1974, Bobby also takes a gig as a tennis pro and greeter at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino in Las Veg. Remember Jackie the Lackey? Cerone, the mobster who golfed with bobby in the 70s? He skims money from the counting room of the Tropicana. That real crime inspires a cinematic one in Martin Scorsese's film Casino and earns Sarone A 28 year sentence in federal prison. How did Bobby get the job at the Tropicana? It's unclear. The public's perception of the battle of the sexes is that Billie Jean won without the help of Bobby taking a dive. But the theory that Bobby engineered a fix has always been floating around. After all, his terrible performance made it easy to speculate about what happened. In 1983, he pops up on Lie Detector, a show hosted by the criminal defense attorney F. Lee Bailey. When Bailey asks Bobby if he threw the match, Bobby says no. Then Bailey claims Bobby has passed the lie detector test. You might know Bailey as a member of O.J. simpson's criminal defense team. What you might not know is that in the 70s, Bailey helped Santo Trafficante Jr. Get out of a subpoena to testify in front of Congress about the JFK assassination. If you recall, Trafficante is one of the four men. Hal Shaw overhears discussing Bobby's alleged plan that fateful night in the early 70s. Of course, none of this actually proves that Bobby threw the match. Lornie Kewell, Bobby's best friend and the executor of his estate, finds the whole thing unbelievable. He denies Shaw's claims, Calling his story complete BS Lorni says that Bobby never owed the mob money. He also says that the Mafia never deposited any money in a bank account for Bobby in England. Larry Riggs, Bobby's son, isn't sure if Halshaw's story is true. But he admits that his father did hang out with connected guys and that leading up to the battle of the sexes, several of them visited his dad. Larry also doesn't understand why Bobby didn't train very hard for the match. But Larry's theory is that if his dad did throw it, it was to set up a more lucrative rematch. Cuel claims that there's a rematch clause in Bobby and Billie Jean's contract, but she refuses to play him again. This upsets Bobby enough that he threatens to sue Billie Jean. Eventually, he decides against it. For his part, Halshaw is glad he has shared his story. He says he has no axe to grind. He just knows deep in his heart that Bobby took a fall and made it look good. He pulled it off. Before he can finish investigating the battle of the sexes for espn, dawn has to land one last big interview about the alleged fix, and that's with Billie Jean King. By the time Don tries to arrange it, Billie Jean spokesperson Tip Nunn has heard about Hal Shaw's story, probably from Lornie Kewle. Tip reaches out to one of Don's colleagues and asks if Don is an ambush reporter. Don eventually speaks to Tip, who who tells him that it's up to Billie Jean if she wants to be interviewed. It takes some convincing, but Billie Jean agrees to sit down with dawn on camera during the interview. She denies there was a fix. She says that if Bobby prevailed, he could have made even more money playing other top women. When dawn tells Billie Jean the details of Hal Shaw's story, she's incredulous. She says that she would bet her life that Bobby never had a discussion with mobsters about throwing the match. When dawn tells Billie Jean that actually he did, her jaw drops. It's a completely reasonable reaction. The battle of the sexes is an important part of Billie Jean's enormous legacy. She doesn't want anything to taint it. When I spoke to dawn, he told me he understands where she's coming from. Don, I guess a big question is if the battle of the sexes was fixed, do you think it taints the legacy of the match?
- [43:25]
C
I don't think it taints the legacy necessarily. Certainly the way it made men and women feel hasn't changed. And there was a number of people I quoted in My story that were very eloquent about this point, that Billie Jean King did the near impossible, and I don't prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. One of the things that was so fun about the story, Carter, is that I think it makes a compelling circumstantial case that Riggs was doing something here that he shouldn't have done. I mean, one of my favorite anecdotes is the year before he died. He was still being asked by people whether he might have tanked the match or things like that. And he told a tennis writer, well, people believed it, but no. Billie Jean beat me fair and square. And he died at the age of 77 in 1995. And shortly before he died, Billie Jean King called him. Bobby said, you know, I love you, Billy, and Billy said, I love you. And Bobby said to Billie Jean King, you know, we did it, didn't we? We really made history.
- [44:30]
A
Don, I'm curious, is this a story that you loved working on?
- [44:35]
C
It's one of my favorite stories I've done in my career. It was a story that was kind of preposterous, to be honest, when I first heard it. Like, really? This is one guy in Tampa who harbored this secret for four decades, and now he's telling me, and he's 79 years old, and, you know, really, am I going to go chase this down and try to undercut, you know, this beloved moment in American sports history? But the more I look under rocks and the more I looked into it and the more people I talked to, the more I kept thinking, it's a fascinating detective story. It's, you know, it's kind of a, you know, who done it? It's, you know, putting the puzzle pieces together. And the thing that was so much fun about it, Carter, is it's. It's not. I didn't prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt. It's a circumstantial case. I think it's a pretty strong one. But it just. It's a fascinating alternate, potentially alternate history to one of the great and most iconic moments in American sports history.
- [45:41]
A
The thing is, not all detective stories are wrapped up neatly. It's hard to square. But sometimes two things can be true at once. There is evidence that Bobby Riggs, with the backing of the Mafia, may have fixed the battle of the sexes. But betting against herself is easy. What Billie Jean did was much more difficult. She trained hard, withstood enormous pressure, and defeated Bobby Riggs with ease. She became a feminist icon and an American hero. Nothing can Take that away from her. Thank you for listening to conspiracy theories. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram heconspiracypod. If you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Extra special thanks to our guest today, don Van Natta Jr. If you'd like to learn more about the battle of the sexes, read the Matchmaker his in depth ESPN article about it. Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story isn't always the truth. This episode was written and researched by Alan Siegel, edited by Miki Taylor, fact checked by Sophie Kemp and engineered video, edited and sound designed by Alex Button. I'm your host. Host Carter Roy.
- [47:26]
C
Hello.
- [47:27]
A
Look what T.J. maxx dragged in.
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B
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is now streaming on Disney plus and Hulu.
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A
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B
The fashion event of the year is certified fresh.
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C
We have work to do.
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B
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A
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C
Now, I was looking for fun ways
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A
to tell you that Mint's offer of
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C
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A
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A
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C
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A
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B
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