The Battle of the Sexes

Summary

Stuff You Should Know — "The Battle of the Sexes"

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Episode Date: February 26, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode dives into the cultural, historical, and sporting significance of the 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. Hosts Josh and Chuck explore the societal backdrop, media spectacle, personalities involved, and the lasting impact on gender equality in sports and beyond. The discussion highlights feminism’s gains in the early 1970s, the evolving world of professional tennis, and the personal stories that animated this pop culture phenomenon.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Stage: The Early 1970s and Gender Equality (10:10–13:51)

• Rise of the Women’s Movement:
  • Early 1970s marked by significant momentum in women’s rights—e.g., Roe v. Wade (1973), Title IX (1972), and the Equal Rights Amendment debates.
  • Equal pay and opportunity for women became central issues in sports, education, and the workplace.

  “It was a big time for women... Roe v. Wade was decided in 73, the Equal Rights Amendment was all over the news...” –Chuck Bryant (10:10)

• History of Tennis’s Gender Disparity:
  • Explosive growth of tennis; prize money disparities: men earning two to three times more than women.
  • Billie Jean King’s early activism against wage inequality and her career as a preeminent player.

The Power Moves: Organizing Women’s Tennis (13:51–18:20)

• Birth of the Virginia Slims Tour:
  • Billie Jean King, with Gladys Heldman, challenges the status quo by organizing an alternative women’s tournament after unequal prize offerings.
  • The “Original Nine” women sign symbolic $1 contracts to start their own circuit.
  • Virginia Slims tobacco sponsor brings media attention and funding.

  “They were clearly doing this to make a statement and not to make a ton of money.” –Chuck Bryant (17:05)

• Formation of the WTA:
  • After successes, players form the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) in 1973 and successfully demand equal US Open prize money.

  “We're gonna form the WTA, the Women's Tennis Association. We're gonna have an actual union in place where we can do what unions do and stick up for ourselves.” –Chuck Bryant (22:38)

Enter the Villain: Bobby Riggs (24:22–29:36)

• Who is Bobby Riggs?
  • Former world #1 men's player, gambler, hustler, and brash self-promoter.
  • Known as a “pre-Internet troll,” Riggs courts controversy by spouting male chauvinist views—both as shtick and perhaps belief.

  "He is entertaining, for sure.... It seemed like a bit of an act... to get attention." –Chuck Bryant (24:22) “If he can't play for small money, I won't get out of bed that day.” –Josh Clark quoting Riggs (25:57)

• Margaret Court’s Defeat and Billie Jean’s Motivation:
  • Riggs defeats women’s world #1 Margaret Court in the infamous “Mother's Day Massacre,” employing junk shots and showmanship.
  • Observing this, Billie Jean King resolves to play Riggs herself.

Media Circus: Hype and the Matchup (31:06–44:30)

• Spectacle and Showmanship:
  • Media dubs it “The Libber vs The Lobber.”
  • Riggs ramps up misogynist comedy and crude antics to build hype (e.g., appearing in nipple-exposing shirts, gifting a giant Sugar Daddy candy).

  “He did not train nearly as much as he did for Margaret Court. Essentially he was out partying in the lead up to all of this.” –Josh Clark (32:46)

• Billie Jean King’s Strategy:
  • King takes the challenge with utmost seriousness—both physically and as a statement for women’s rights.
  • Insists on playing five-set “men’s rules,” maximizing the physical challenge for her older opponent.

The Main Event: The 1973 Astrodome Match (38:13–48:09)

• Stats & Spectacle:
  • Held September 20, 1973, at Houston’s Astrodome.
  • 30,000 in attendance; tens of millions (50-90 million) watching worldwide.
  • King enters on a platform carried by men; Riggs on a carriage pulled by “Bobby’s bosom buddies.”
  • Sugar Daddy sponsorship and a pig (named “Bobby Riggs”) exchanged as gifts for added theatricality.

  “That says everything you need to know about Billie Jean King... She thought of everything.” –Chuck Bryant (43:10)

• On-Court Action:
  • Riggs takes early lead; King adapts style, wears him out, and wins in three straight sets (6-4, 6-3, 6-3).

  “She started drawing volleys out... She had this old man running back and forth, chasing down these balls to purposefully tire him out.” –Josh Clark (45:37)

• Cultural Response:
  • Media response is gendered and patronizing, with headlines like “Women's libbers lit up more brightly than the rocket shooting Astrodome scoreboard.”
  • King’s victory is a milestone, though media coverage sometimes diminishes its seriousness.

  “...she was a champion, a woman and a little girl all at the same time.” –Chuck Bryant, quoting NYT (47:22)

Aftermath & Legacy (48:09–55:12)

• Riggs and King’s Post-Match Lives:
  • Riggs gracious in defeat, despite rumors (unproven) he threw the match for gambling purposes.
  • King continues her advocacy: founds Women’s Sports Foundation, comes out as gay after legal and media battles in the 1980s.

  “She stood behind it. She didn't deny it. She didn't deny who she was. She said, yep, I'm gay.” –Josh Clark (53:52)

• The Fight Goes On:
  • Full gender pay parity in Grand Slam tennis isn’t achieved until 2007; some tournaments still lag.
  • King’s activism continues to inspire ongoing battles for equality in sports.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the stakes for Billie Jean King:

“If she beats him, everyone's like, well, of course she’d beat this old man. And if she loses, that's of course, like, looks terrible to be beaten by the old man.” –Chuck Bryant (28:06)

On Riggs’s tactics:

“He was playing like a punk.... And it threw [Margaret Court] off her game.” –Chuck Bryant (29:09)

On the show’s over-the-top presentation:

“Billie Jean King was like, no, we're going to play five sets, best of five, essentially.” –Josh Clark (41:16)

On victory, media and gender roles:

“All of a sudden, she was a champion, a woman and a little girl all at the same time.” –NYT, quoted by Chuck Bryant (47:22)
“He accepted the defeat with dignity and grace... He hopped right over the net and went up to her and he said, confidentially... that he underestimated her.” –Josh Clark (48:21)

On King’s legacy:

“[King] was outed in 1981... her choice to do so was removed, but she stood behind it... She didn't deny who she was.” –Josh Clark (53:52)

Final touching note:

“Before [Bobby Riggs] died in 1995... Billie Jean King visited Bobby Riggs to say goodbye.” –Josh Clark (55:06)

---

Timestamps: Key Segments

• 10:10–13:26 — Setting the 1970s cultural stage
• 13:51–18:20 — Formation of independent women’s tennis circuit
• 22:38–24:22 — Birth of the WTA and strategic advances
• 24:22–29:36 — Bobby Riggs’ persona and Margaret Court match
• 31:06–34:09 — The media build-up and character dynamics
• 38:13–44:30 — Match spectacle, rituals, and pageantry
• 45:03–46:49 — On-court action and King’s win
• 47:22–48:09 — Media aftermath
• 53:52–55:12 — Aftermath for King and Riggs; the ongoing struggle for equality

---

Tone & Style

• The conversation is energetic, occasionally irreverent, and grounded in historical storytelling with pop culture references and banter.
• Hosts blend admiration for King, mild ribbing of Riggs, and critical insight into the time’s gender politics.

---

Summary for New Listeners

This engaging episode covers the full story of the iconic Battle of the Sexes, including the social change fueling it, the personal drive and activism of Billie Jean King, and the media circus orchestrated by Bobby Riggs. The episode unpacks not only the match’s drama but also the significance for gender equality, women’s professional sports, and cultural representation—a story that still echoes in sports and society today.

Transcript

[Chuck Bryant]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human if you were to try two zero sugar colas with their labels removed and make the decision based on taste alone, do you know which one you'd choose?

[Josh Clark]

Well, last year Pepsi put that to the test for tens of thousands of people across the country in a revival of the iconic Pepsi Challenge and the results were clear. 66% of people preferred the taste of Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coke Zero Sugar. That's the idea behind the Pepsi paradox, that when labels and bias disappear, people prefer the taste of Pepsi Zero sugar.

[Chuck Bryant]

It really makes you wonder, are you choosing the zero sugar cola that you actually prefer or are you settling for the label that you think you prefer?

[Josh Clark]

Go out and try Pepsi Zero Sugar today. You deserve taste. You deserve Pepsi.

[Chuck Bryant]

With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to a consistent with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends it's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com bank capital1n a member fdic this message is sponsored by Regeneron and Sanofi. Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant do not have direct experience with the product advertised or the disease. You know that feeling when you get an itch that you just can't ignore? Well, you scratch and it comes back and scratch again. Still there. If you have eczema, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

[Josh Clark]

Eczema is more than just dry skin. It's relentless itching. It's uncomfortable. If you feel like your moderate to severe eczema isn't under control with topical prescription therapies, it may be time to ask about dupixent.

[Chuck Bryant]

Dupilumab Dupixent works inside the body to help block a key source of inflammation that can cause flare ups on the outside for clearer skin and less itch. And it's not a steroid or immunosuppressant. Severe allergic reactions, including skin reactions, can occur. Get help right away for face, mouth, tongue or throat swelling, wheezing or trouble breathing. Tell your doctor of new or worsening eye problems like eye pain, vision changes, skin symptoms, joint aches and pain, or a parasitic infection. Don't change or stop other treatments without talking to your doctor.

[Josh Clark]

Dupixent helps heal your skin from within. Talk to your eczema specialist about DUPIXENT, or visit DUPIXENT.com to learn more.

[Chuck Bryant]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartradio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. It's just the two of us, and that's great because I'll be playing the role of Billie Jean King, and Chuck's going to play the role of male chauvinist pig, Bobby Riggs.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man.

[Josh Clark]

Take it, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, before we get going on this one, I have a quick shout out. And this is coming out a couple of days after I did this because we're cutting it so close because of our week off last week. But that makes me happy because I was asked, a friend of mine's son, his name is Royce, he is a student, a junior, at Midtown High School here in Atlanta.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he has a teacher, Ms. Smolko, who is a longtime Stuff youf Should Know listener. And when Royce told Ms. Smolko, like, hey, I know that guy. We're buddies. We go to HOGS games together. She kind of flipped out and was like, oh, my God, I wonder if, like, would he be interested in and helping us out with our podcast program?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they set it up via email. And I spent yesterday, which was in our world Monday at Midtown High School, addressing the junior class, about 200 kids. And I gotta say, man, it was an incredible experience. The students were into it. They were engaged. They had great questions. They had great answers. They were, you know, a lot of it was sharing, you know, what they're doing with this podcast project, which is based off of, like, stuff you should know style, stuff, neat, which was super cool. Like, these real philosophical questions that they're digging into and taking opposite sides and debating. And they were seeking advice. And it was just. It was an incredible experience. And I just. I left, like, on a real high about Gen Z and, like, where our future is headed. And it was just awesome.

[Josh Clark]

Great. So the broad strokes are Gen Z got Chuck high yesterday.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Yeah, they got me super high. It was really cool. They were all just amazing kids. And Ms. Smolko is wonderful. And the other teacher, I think his name was Alex. I can't remember his last name, but he was super nice. And they're just like, hats off to these teachers. What's going on, at least at Midtown High School, is amazing. And I just left feeling great. That was awesome.

[Josh Clark]

I think Royce is getting an A.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, Royce wasn't even there. He does, like, a late arrival thing. Because of, like, work study or something. And so I was like, dude, I texted him, I was like, where were you? And he explained the whole deal, like, that he's not even allowed in school

[Josh Clark]

till later, so they won't.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was just one of those things.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

But everyone was super nice, and it was just. It was so cool to see how into it everybody was.

[Josh Clark]

That's awesome. What? Way to go, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, and real quick, there were a couple of students. I won't name them. I have permission to name Royce because he's a pal. But there were two legitimate big time stuff, you should know listeners in the junior class that came up after and said hello, and they were both like, really, really nice.

[Josh Clark]

Awesome. Shout out thing one and think two.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

Way to go, Chuck. You were basically a teacher for that moment.

[Chuck Bryant]

While you were here, it kind of felt that way. It's like, maybe one day when I retire, I'll just, like, go and teach for real.

[Josh Clark]

I'll let you borrow my tweed jacket with the suede elbow patches.

[Chuck Bryant]

The don't be dumb jacket.

[Josh Clark]

Mm.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow. That's a big deal.

[Josh Clark]

You have to overlook all the stains on it. All right, so we are talking about the battle of the sexes today, which I guess, I mean, this is a tough act to follow after your story. Frankly.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, this is a great, fun sort of pop culture history story and sports story. There was a movie about it just a handful of years ago starring Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs and Emma Stone as Billie Jean King, where they portrayed the very famous tennis match between a male chauvinist pig, an aging over the hill hustler, tennis star that basically came out and said, you know what? Men are better at women than everything. And an old me can beat a young champion in Billie Jean King. And let's do it on national TV at the Houston Astrodome in front of a ton of people.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, and that's what happened. The end.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

So this was a really big deal. I mean, it sounds like just kind of light hearted, maybe a bit of a joke. This actually still happens today. Their battle of the sexist tennis matches. Yeah, this was the first one, and it was a very big deal for everyone involved. On the one hand, you have Bobby Riggs, like you said, over the hill. He was 55 and he was trying to. He was right. He was trying to figure out two weeks. He was. Oh, that's right. The Ides of March are coming up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, boy. Yeah. So over the hill. I get it.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Yes. Although 55 in 1973 was a lot different than 55 now, right? Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I don't look like Bobby Riggs, but

[Josh Clark]

he was over the hill. Not just necessarily because of his age. He'd just been so far out of tennis for so long. He was an attention hound and he wanted to get back in the spotlight. So for him, this was a gambit. It was a lot of work to do it, but it was something he was trying to do. On the other side was Billie Jean King, who took this very seriously because to her, this was symbolic of women's rights, which she was a tireless fighter for, not just before this, but after. For essentially her whole life. Still today.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, she's great. Love, Billie Jean King.

[Josh Clark]

She's a hero.

[Chuck Bryant]

Bobby Riggs. We'll talk about him in depth. We're not going to make excuses for the guy, but I will say Billie Jean King remained very good friends with him and never came out and said, like, you know, I mean, when they were going at it, she was kind of playing him up as a male chauvinist pig, which he was. But she would end up saying, like, Bobby Riggs was a man of his time and sort of a victim of being a man of his time. So she kind of went easy on him. I'm not sure I'm gonna go so easy on him.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I saw in places that there's. It's questionable whether he actually, like, even believed most of the stuff he was saying. That, again, all this was a gambit he figured out a really good way to get media attention was to just be like the most loudmouth chauvinist pig, just saying the most offensive stuff and becoming loathsome to women. That this would just generate more buzz and more hype for what he was trying to do, which, I mean, just doing that is a jerk move. But it's not set in stone that he was someone who actually harbored these feelings personally. So you gotta bear that in mind while we're telling this story, because a lot of people don't realize that, like, anti feminists, a lot of men don't realize it and a lot of feminists don't realize it. They took it, everything he was doing, very seriously. But like you said, Billie Jean King didn't, which is a huge signal right there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And this just hit my brain. If I'm going to go hard on Bobby Riggs, then I also need to do the same to Andy Kaufman and his whole wrestling shtick, which I think is one of the great, funny, kind of Comedy bits. But it was kind of the same thing, like playing a role to get women riled up, to get attention.

[Josh Clark]

Well, really, if we learned anything from this battle of the sexist tennis match is if you're going to go hard on Bobby Riggs, you need to go hard on Billie Jean King.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. Should we go back to the early 70s and set the stage?

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. Early 1970s was. It was a pretty volatile time. It was a big time for women to start kind of standing up for real and saying, like, hey, we want attention, we want rights, we want the same rights as men. Roe v. Wade was decided in 73. The Equal Rights Amendment was all over the news in the case of Sports, certainly 1972, with Title IX of the Education Amendments act that required schools to offer girls and women the opportunities to basically get equal funding and participate equally in athletics as boys and men. So it was a big time for women's advocacy and feminism and women's rights between, like, 19 and, you know, certainly before that, but definitely between 1970 and, like, 1975.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And just as an aside, we did, if I may say so, a pretty good episode on the Equal rights amendment in 2021 called why is the ERA still not ratified? Yeah. Which is true. Yeah. So, yeah, it was a big time. There was a lot of momentum for women's lib, for feminism. It was also a big time for tennis, which was becoming really, really popular, especially in the United States. The number of Americans who played tennis tripled from 1970 to 1974. And one of the reasons why is because the tennis world started holding Opens. I never knew this before, but the US Open, the Australian Open. The reason they're called Opens, because they're open to all players. You can be an amateur, you can be a pro, and you can compete in this. These tournaments. An Open tournament that was brand new. I think Wimbledon was the first one to start it, I think, in 1968. So a lot of really freaky, exciting stuff's going on in the world.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. Billie Jean King was. And we should also point out that, you know, as far as wage disparity, in 1968, if you were a professional tennis player, you earned two to three times as much as a woman. And when the sport grew, that gap actually grew. It didn't get more narrow, which was pretty startling at the time. But Billie Jean King was born in 1943, and by the time this event rolled around, she was huge. She had won 10 Grand Slam titles by 73. She was number one. Ranked tennis player six different times in 1970 or by 1973, was the 1972 Sports Illustrated Sports Person of the Year. And like you said, was a real feminist activist, kind of from the jump. I think there was a story from when she was a kid, when she was 11 or 12, a junior player, she was not allowed to be in a photo, like a tournament photo, because she wasn't wearing the tennis skirt, she was wearing shorts. And they said, you can't be in this picture. And immediately little 12 year old Billie Jean King was like, what the hell?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. She was like, these are skorts. They said that doesn't count.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. That's not a thing yet.

[Josh Clark]

So. Yeah. And one thing about Billie Jean King, from a bunch of stuff I read and saw about her, is that like she's, she was tireless and still is. She's a tireless activist for women's rights. Like she didn't ever slow down.

[Chuck Bryant]

And.

[Josh Clark]

And when you kind of learn about all the side stuff she did to promote women in tennis and women's rights in general, like on top of that, bear in mind she's one of the top tennis players in the world by dominating in tennis. So that takes a lot of practice, a lot of dedication, and she's doing all this other stuff at the same time. So she's like basically the definition of tireless.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And she was doing this in the 1960s because all those accomplishments I mentioned was by 73. But in 1966, she was the number one women's tennis player in the world and she was making $100 a week as a playground instructor at Los Angeles State College. So the money the athletes were making was not anything like it is today. And it was way, way worse for women. I think that first open you mentioned at Wimbledon, in 68, she won that tournament and won 750 pounds. Rod Laver, the men's champion, won 2,000 pounds. And she was like in 68, she was like, this is totally unfair what's going on.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And money comes up a lot. The reason why is it's an easy shorthand to basically point out women's lesser treatment compared to men. It's also something that most people can just kind of wrap their minds around, like, yeah, £750 is a lot less than £2,000, but they're both the champions. That doesn't make any sense. So money is a big focus throughout this, but it's not just because everybody wants money, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, totally. So in 1970, Billie Jean King was like, we need to do something sort of official and sort of big here. So she looked to a woman named Gladys Heldman, who was the founder of World Tennis Magazine. She was a very big prominent figure in the tennis world overall, obviously because of World Tennis and also because she was at the time the mother of a very high ranked player named Julie Heldman, that was her daughter. So she was a good person to go to. And they said, here's what we can do to make a splash. There's a tennis tournament coming up called the Pacific Southwest Open in LA where they're paying. The prize purse for the men's champion is 12,500. The purse for the women's champion is $1,500, which, I mean, looking back at the Wimbledon disparity, that wasn't too bad compared to this, you know, and this was even after that. And they said, why don't we boycott this tournament? And Gladys Heldman said, you know what? Why don't we start our own tournament that competes with this tournament? And everyone went, ooh, this sounds exciting.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So, yeah, that was a huge step beyond what they were originally thinking of. And so the US Tennis association at the time, they were called the US Lawn Tennis association association, they were like, hey, go ahead and try that, but we are going to suspend you, we might ban you from tournament play. We're going to erase your rankings. Like it's going to be a bad jam if you guys go off and form your own tournament. And that it took a lot of bravery because not all women tennis players signed on for this. In fact, only nine, including Billie Jean King, said, you know what, we're going to go do this anyway. And so they signed contracts with Heldman. And so they became pros on this other tour, which protected them from getting punished on the USLTA tour. And they started their own championship, which eventually was, I think, supported and sponsored by Virginia Slim cigarettes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's right. And we should mention that contract was for a dollar each. So they, they clearly were doing this to make a statement and not to make a ton of money.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But Philip Morris. Yeah, they stepped in because there was a recent federal ban on advertising on TV and radio for cigarettes. And so they said, we gotta get our name out there somewhere. So let's call this the, you know, we've got these Virginia Slims with its quasi feminist message. You've come a long way, baby. That was our ad slogan for a long time.

[Josh Clark]

Long time.

[Chuck Bryant]

And tennis, you know, the original nine is what they were called, those tennis players that went along or the eight that went along with Billie Jean King and said they were like, eh, I mean we're athletes, it's a little weird to have a cigarette sponsor but we need a sponsor so we'll take it. And that tournament went over really well and it was so successful that they said, hey, why don't we start our own circuit? And they had the Virginia Slim circuit. There were eight more tournaments that they sponsored. And the original nine, you know, they initially did follow through with their threat to like ban them. The usl. Yeah, the USLTA at the time. But they said, oh, actually they're, they're doing so well over there, we're in trouble now, so we need to join forces. And they gave up and they merged with the Virginia Slim events.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I'm not usually one to defend tobacco producers, but I saw a pbs, I think American Masters clip that was interviewing some of the original nine and they were like Virginia Slims showed up like they knew how to market, they knew how to get buzz. They put a ton of money behind advertising and like they, this was not like a. Just a whatever thing to them. They were actually a really great sponsor for this. So yeah, they, yes, these nine women and I think eventually more joined. They were, they were like, if you won't include us, we're just going to go create our own thing. Like they worked at it like that and it actually paid off in ases.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. Hey, you want to take a break?

[Josh Clark]

Hey. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, we'll be back right after this.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

Support for the show comes from public. Lately, the line between investing and gambling has started to blur. But let's be real, you can't build actual wealth on a coin flip. That's why public takes a different approach. It's the investing platform where you can build a serious long term portfolio. Stocks, options, bonds, crypto, they have it all. But unlike platforms that basically just give you a buy button, public provides actual context. So when you see volatility in your portfolio, you aren't just staring at a chart, you're reading a helpful explanation about why the stock is up or down. You can even go deeper with the built in AI research assistant. It's all about giving you the information you need to invest with conviction. Be right. More often, go to public.com and earn an uncapped 1% match when you transfer your investments. Public Investing for those who take it seriously Ad paid for by Public Holdings Brokerage Services by Public Investing Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors SEC Registered Advisor all investing involves Risk of loss. See complete [e-mail] disclosures.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, everybody, get this. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from other ad buys.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, even company revenue. So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. That's why LinkedIn ads generates the highest B2B ROAS of all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them.

[Chuck Bryant]

And get this. If you spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads, you get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.comSYSK that's LinkedIn.comSYSK. terms and conditions apply. Hey, listeners, let me ask you a question. When you're choosing a cola, are you making your decision based purely on taste or based on the brand that you think you like? That's the question at the heart of the Pepsi paradox.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. This idea shows that when labels and bias disappear, people actually prefer the taste of Pepsi Zero Sugar. Pepsi's been demonstrating this since the original Pepsi Challenge back in the 70s, when people at malls and grocery stores discovered that in blind taste tests, they preferred the taste of Pepsi. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But it's not just some relic of the past. Last year, Pepsi revived the iconic Pepsi Challenge, this time with Pepsi Zero Sugar, and took the Challenge across the country when taste was the only thing that mattered. In that challenge, 66% of participants preferred the taste of Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coke Zero Sugar and Pepsi Zero Sugar won every single market that the Challenge visited.

[Josh Clark]

So let us take you back to that simple question that we posed at the top. Are you choosing the Zero sugar cola that you actually prefer, or are you settling for the label that you think you prefer? Go out and try Pepsi Zero Sugar Today. You deserve taste. You deserve Pepsi.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so where we left off, the original nine went off and formed their own Virginia Slim circuit. They were, you know, endangered the US LTA such that they partnered with them eventually. But money started flowing in a little bit. In 1971, Billie Jean King was the first female athlete of any sport at all to make more than $100,000. A lot of money in 1971. Still a lot less than her peers on the male side of the equation. And so she was still, you know, banging that drum. She wasn't like, all right, our work is done. And in 1973, before Wimbledon, that year, she got together in London, where Wimbledon is in A hotel room with 63. I guess it was probably a large meeting room. Yeah, 63 other women tennis players. And they said, all right, we're doing this today. We're gonna form the WTA, the Women's Tennis Association. We're gonna have an actual union in place where we can do what unions do and stick up for ourselves.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. They threatened to boycott, like, pretty much immediately after they formed the WTA, they said that they were going to boycott the US Open if we don't get equal prize money for women and men. And I believe that was successful. They got the US Open to agree, and it was. This is like things are moving along for women's equality in tennis at this time. Right. So it's a huge focus of conversation with tennis. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, it was all over the media. Everywhere you looked. It was about sort of equal pay, equal rights. And that was in the regular world. And all of a sudden it was now, like, in the sports world in a big way.

[Josh Clark]

Well put.

[Chuck Bryant]

So now we can talk a little bit about our. I'm going to put it in scare quotes, our villain, Mr. Bobby Riggs, who was. I tell you what, man. I mean, it is very Andy Kaufman esque. If you watch interviews with this guy, if he's nothing, he. He is entertaining, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

He was a true great tennis player. At one time, shortly after World War II, I think he was the number one men's player in 1946 and 1947, and not just from, like, December to January, like both of those years, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So he had, you know, the. The goods to back up like this. It wasn't just some. Some dude who had a tennis racket, but after the late 40s, he essentially, like, left the tour and he started hustling and taking bets from essentially anybody who would. Who would play him in tennis pool. I think you saw a 60 Minutes clip where he was gambling on throwing cards into a wastebasket. Like he would bet on anything. There was a quote in that 60 minutes clip where he said, he likes to play for big money. If he can't play for big money, he'll play for small money. If I can't play for small money, I won't get out of bed that day. Like, that's just what that guy did. He gambled, he hustled. And he was known as a loudmouth, too, but he also seems to be fairly loved. Essentially. He was like one of those people that you just kind of. You couldn't help but, like, even though. Yeah, he was a loudmouth and trying to get you to bet him some money.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he was a troll. Livia called him a pre Internet troll. And that's exactly what he was. It seemed like a bit of an act and a bit of a shtick to get attention, like we said. But he would say things, you know, a woman's place is in the kitchen, in the bedroom, and not necessarily in that order. Or women play 25% as good as men, so they should get 25% of the money men get. I was reading. I think it was a. Oh, was it Esquire or something? An article about him. And the whole idea of playing Billie Jean King was birthed when I think a reporter was just talking to him about, you know, can men beat women? Or who could beat Billie Jean King in tennis? And he said, I think any guy in the top 100 could beat Billie Jean King. And he went, in fact, I think I could beat her. And that's sort of when he seemed to hatch this idea for publicity and money.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. He was like, oh, but there's good action there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, totally.

[Josh Clark]

He. So, yes. So like, he said these things. Actually, at least one of those quotes is from one of his autobiographies.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So, like, he wrote this stuff down. He wasn't. This wasn't just stuff he started saying when he decided to play Billie Jean King, he was already known as a male chauvinist. But, yes, he was an attention hound. And this is, again, a way that he figured out how to do this. So he started publicly challenging Billie Jean King. He's like, in his mid-50s, she's in her late 20s prime. And she's like, no, that's okay. I'm too busy. And again, remember, she was genuinely tireless organizing the Virginia Slim Circuit and creating the Women's Tennis association, all the while winning all of these championships and Grand Slams. So she had a legitimate excuse, like, I'm too busy. The thing is, there was also, like, a case you could make that she saw very clearly, like, I don't know if I have that much to gain by playing this, and I have a lot to lose for the women's movement. I could easily set it back if I lose. So there was a. She had good reason to kind of avoid this as long as she could.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's sort of a lose, lose proposition for her. If she beats him, everyone's like, well, of course she'd beat this old man.

[Josh Clark]

You're right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that's how he probably would have played it up as. And, well, we'll see what happened but, and if she loses, that's of course, like, looks terrible to be beaten by the old man.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So she was wise to avoid it, I think. But there was another woman, in fact, she was the. I think she was the number one player in the world, women's player in 1973, named Margaret Court, an Aussie. And she was like, she wasn't super active in the politics of women's sports. And she was like, yeah, sure, I'll play him. She stepped right up. And in May of 1973, this was in San Diego or outside San Diego, they played a three set match where $10,000 and about 10 million people, a lot of people tuned into this first one on CBS. 3500 people were there live. And he beat her. He beat her 6, 2, 6, 1 by playing. I want to say a certain thing, but I can't. He was playing like a punk.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

He's playing junk shots and like drop shots. And he wasn't playing like sort of real tennis. He was playing sort of joke tennis. And when you're playing against a player that can hit aggressive, strong shots and you're just plunking them over the net like it's gonna. You can't play tennis that way if you're a real player. And it, it threw her off her game. She got in his head. I think the moment was a little too big for her. I don't think she realized how much attention there was gonna be. And she ended up getting beat pretty badly.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he got in her head, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So, yes, it's called the Mother's Day Massacre because it was held on Mother's Day. And I mean, it was really bad. But there's a point that I want you to hang on to for later. As much of a punk as he played, he didn't play actual serious tennis. He was playing jokey tennis to win. He took that, that match very seriously. He trained for months ahead of time. He was playing or training like 10 to 12 hours a day, every day. He really trained. And by the time he was, by the time the game came around, he knew he was going to beat Margaret Court. So just keep that in mind how hard he trained for that. Okay?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And also we should point out, like, at the very beginning of that match, to open it up, he presented her with a bouquet of roses and she curtsied back to him. And Billie Jean King is watching this, just like, you know, furious inside. Like, she's like, ah, he's playing. And she, in fact, said later that she Played right into his hands there. And I would have grabbed him and kissed him. If he gets dirty, I can get tough, too. So she hated the fact that Margaret Court went out there and sort of curtsied to him and took the roses and then lost on national tv, I guess, international tv. And so she was like, all right, you know what? I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna step up and I'm gonna play Bobby Riggs. It's my turn.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So she agreed to do this, and it became immediately buzzworthy, I guess, is what you would call it if you're into that kind of thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. The libber versus the lobber is how they dubbed it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So like I said, it's immediately generating buzz. Bobby Riggs starts giving television interviews to any camera that will stand still long enough. And he's a magnet for that kind of stuff because, again, he's a loudmouth. He's saying horrible things about women. He's accepting, like, the male chauvinist pig moniker, like, with pride or whatever.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And he's just like one of those. Like, he would talk a mile a minute. He had so much energy. He was just a little. A little kind of squirrely guy. Kind of like Richard Simmons. Did you ever see Richard Simmons when he would go on Letterman?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. So the way that Letterman kind of regarded Richard Simmons affectionately, but also like, this guy's. He's moving around a lot. Yeah, yeah, it was. He was like that, but amped up on, like, speed, essentially. So he was a magnet for cameras, and he was giving interviews all over the place.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And he was also, you know, he's adding hype for the event, obviously, by saying things like, you know, she's a woman. They don't have the emotional stability. She'll choke. He added more stakes. He said that he would jump from the London Bridge in Arizona or the Pasadena Bridge if he lost. And, you know, he was all over the place. He was on the COVID of Time magazine that year in September. It was a caricature of him wearing a male chauvinist badge. And then there was a picture of a pig and a banner that said, the Happy Hustler. So it was all working exactly as he planned. But Billie Jean King, like, if he took that first match seriously, he didn't take this one as seriously. And Billie Jean King was really taking it seriously.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I'm not sure if he was just resting on his laurels because of how badly he beat Margaret Court, that he just assumed that that was going to translate into playing Billie Jean King. But he did not train nearly as much as he did for Billy, for Margaret Court. Essentially he was out partying in the lead up to all of this. He was also really, really getting more and more offensive as, as things went on. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, you're going to leave this one for me. Yeah. One of the things he did was he showed up to practice one day with the cameras there with holes cut out in his shirt so his nipples could show. And he said that Billie Jean King would look better in this. And she came out in public and she was like, this guy is a creep. Which was about as tough as you could be in language back then.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, publicly. And it was at a press conference with them together and he said, well, you should take that back. And she said, nope, creep stands. And she said later, I saw in an interview, she said that like she didn't take him seriously, but she knew that there were men out there that took him seriously and that she had crossed a line and she needed to make sure that demonstrated that she was not okay with that one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think she kind of played it all just right. It was really pretty savvy stuff on her end.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. So I say we take. Is this our second break?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, second break.

[Josh Clark]

All right. So the gun is going to go off when we come.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

Support for the show comes from public. Lately, the line between investing and gambling has started to blur. But let's be real, you can't build actual wealth on a coin flip. That's why public takes a different approach. It's the investing platform where you can build a serious long term portfolio. Stocks, options, bonds, crypto, they have it all. But unlike platforms that basically just give you a buy button, public provides actual context. So when you see volatility in your portfolio, you aren't just staring at a chart. You're reading a helpful explanation about why the stock is up or down. You can even go deeper with the built in AI research assistant. It's all about giving you the information you need to invest with conviction. Be right more often. Go to public.com and earn an uncapped 1.1percent match when you transfer your investments. Public Investing for those who take it seriously. Ad paid for by Public Holdings Brokerage Services by Public Investing Member finra, SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors SEC Registered Advisor. All investing involves risk of loss. See complete [e-mail] disclosures

[Josh Clark]

hey everybody, get this. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from other ad buys.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, even company revenue. So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. That's why LinkedIn ads generates the highest B2B ROAS of all online ad networks. Seriously? All of them.

[Chuck Bryant]

And get this. If you spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads, you get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.comsy that's LinkedIn.comSYSK terms and conditions apply. Hey, listeners, let me ask you a question. When you're choosing a cola, are you making your decision based purely on taste or based on the brand that you think you like? That's the question at the heart of the Pepsi paradox.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. This idea shows that when labels and bias disappear, people actually prefer the taste of Pepsi Zero Sugar. Pepsi's been demonstrating this since the original Pepsi Challenge back in the 70s, when people at malls and grocery stores discovered that in blind taste tests, they preferred the taste of Pepsi. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But it's not just some relic of the past. Last year, Pepsi revived the iconic Pepsi Challenge, this time with Pepsi Zero Sugar, and took the challenge across the country when taste was the only thing that mattered. In that challenge, 66% of participants preferred the taste of Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coke Zero Sugar. And Pepsi Zero Sugar won every single market that the challenge visited.

[Josh Clark]

So let us take you back to that simple question that we posed at the top. Are you choosing the Zero sugar cola that you actually prefer, or are you settling for the label that you think you prefer? Go out and try Pepsi Zero Sugar today. You deserve taste. You deserve Pepsi. I wonder how many people are like, what is he talking about when he keeps saying the gun is going to go off whenever act three comes around? Well, I would say study your Chekov friend.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. And not your Chekhov friend. Your Chekhov comma friend.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Not the friend that you're like, I got to hang out with him. And then you do real quick. You check them off your to do list. Not that guy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we all have Chekhov friends.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I'm sure I'm a lot of people's Chekhov friends.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no, no, no, no. All right, so where are we? Are we at match time, Basically. Which was turned into a complete circus, by the way.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. This is September 20th, 1973. It's at the Houston Astrodome.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man.

[Josh Clark]

30,000 people showed up in person to see this. I Saw all over the place, including Britannica, that 90 million people watched it around the world.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think Livia had 50 million people. But I watched an interview with her with, I mean, serious journalists. It was Kathie Lee and Hoda, and they said 90 million. And they were just drunk on white wine at nine in the morning or whatever. So I trust them.

[Josh Clark]

Man, that was a weird time, wasn't it?

[Chuck Bryant]

It was a very weird time. I did want to point out that I looked up. I was like, well, how many people see a tennis tournament at, like, the grandest stage? And center court at Wimbledon is about 15,000 people. So this was double that.

[Josh Clark]

Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Plus it was in the beautiful new Astrodome, so.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. So great.

[Josh Clark]

So the odds were very much in favor on Bobby riggs. Odds were 6 to 1 that Riggs would win. And this was like. The whole thing was kind of presented in the media as like the. The battle of the sexist thing, the man versus woman, and every juvenile joke or, you know, quip or whatever you could make out of that. That is how the whole thing was being promoted. That's how it was being played up in the media. It was not like, this is a very serious thing that may set women's. Women's rights back or move them forward. None of that was. Was in there. It was all just this almost tongue in cheek approach to it. And that's how the whole thing, if you were a viewer, that's what you were kind of shown.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And that's a good thing to point out. There was. Hollywood was involved. There were a lot of actors and singers and stuff that were in a celebrity tournament beforehand. They were really milking it when they came in. The University of Houston band performed the song Conquest, which is an anthem from the 1947 movie Captain from Castile. That's when Bobby Riggs came in. They played Helen Reddy's I Am Woman. When Billie Jean King came in, Livia pointed out that John Wayne, Bill Cosby, and O.J. simpson were in attendance. And I had probably 13 different comments or jokes written out for that, but I'm just gonna let that trio stand

[Josh Clark]

without comment stands on its own.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think so.

[Josh Clark]

So ABC made a fat $1.2 million off of ads for this match.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Astrodome got about half that and people paying admission price.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And the. So with the Margaret Court Mother's Day Massacre game that was played under women's rules, in that there were three sets. That's how women's tennis matches are played. Three sets. Men's tennis matches are played five sets. Billie Jean King was like, no, we're going to play five sets, best of five, essentially.

[Chuck Bryant]

I love it.

[Josh Clark]

So there were five sets, which was smart. Yeah, yeah, for sure. She. Yes. Another thing that you'll see that's happened recently is sometimes. So a woman's court might be smaller than the man's court, which makes it harder for the man to land a. A ball in bounds.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like in a battle of the sexes match.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Thank you. There was nothing like that. This was like a men's match that Billie Jean King was playing against Bobby Riggs.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. Well, she was like, I got this 55 year old guy, like he wants the three set match. So we're gonna go five because I'm in great shape.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Bobby Riggs enters on a carriage pulled by women that are outfitted as Bobby's bosom buddies. How did Billie Jean King come in?

[Josh Clark]

She came in on a. Basically a platform carried by men in togas. I also saw as Egyptians, like Egyptian servants. They were shirtless essentially, and they were brawny dudes. So like both.

[Chuck Bryant]

Probably not her idea.

[Josh Clark]

No, but she was going along with it, right? She played along. Yeah. We were saying that she was taking it seriously and she was. But she was also like willing to play along with this too. Like she wasn't just some like stick in the mud, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, totally.

[Josh Clark]

So just very appropriately, Bobby Riggs was sponsored by Sugar Daddy Candy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And he presented Billie Jean King with a two foot long sugar daddy. Remember those? They would just pull the fillings right out of your head.

[Chuck Bryant]

Totally.

[Josh Clark]

And so King was like, oh, I have a gift for you too. It was a piglet that she named Bobby Riggs because he was a male chauvinist pig. And don't worry about the pig. She coordinated with the promoter, Jerry Perenchio, very legendary promoter, that the pig would not be eaten or harmed. It would go to live on a farm afterward. And it did.

[Chuck Bryant]

That says everything you need to know about Billie Jean King.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

She thought of everything.

[Josh Clark]

She did. She crossed her T's and dotted her oinks.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. So of course it's 1973, so you want to get the best in the business at the time to do the play by play. So they got none other than Howard Cosell. Initially they had a tennis promoter and anti feminist named Jack Kramer who was gonna do. They were gonna do sort of a he versus she commentary and he was gonna be on Rigside and one of the original nine Rosie Casals was gonna be on Billie Jean King's side, but Kramer. And this also speaks to Billie Jean King. He was one of the guys behind that original tournament that they protested and wouldn't play in the Pacific Southwest Open, where they said, oh, yeah, well, we're going to ban you then. So she was like, I'm, hey, this is all fun and games and everything, but if that jerk is involved, I'm not even going to do this. So they pulled Kramer off the. Off the broadcast.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And they didn't have Rosie Casal speak, too. And I'm really glad they didn't do that. That's. I mean, that's. It's a gimmick, and it's understandable, but it would have made the whole thing suck. They brought in Gene Scott, who was the publisher of Tennis Week, and he just gave commentary like it was a regular tennis match, which is kind of what he wanted in this one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed.

[Josh Clark]

So, I mean, imagine Dennis Miller and Dennis Miller calling a tennis match. You don't want that. Yeah. I mean, think about it. Whose idea was it to put him on Monday Night Football? On the one hand, it's brilliant. On the other, it's like, what?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that was weird.

[Josh Clark]

But it lasted for years, too. It's not like it was a couple of games.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, No, I think it was a full season, wasn't it?

[Josh Clark]

I think it was more than that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, was it? Yeah, that was weird.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So the game is on, essentially. That's the point we've reached here.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. So Bobby Riggs takes a 32 lead in the first set. And later on, Billie Jean King would say, like, I was in trouble. I knew I was making some mistakes. I was in my head a little bit, and I knew that I could not give this first set away. Basically, like, he needed to get that set for his psychological standing. And so that first set was so, so important for her. So she knew that she had to win it. She was down 3:2, and she came back and beat him and won that first set six to four, which was a huge blow to his psyche.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. She said that she could tell that that had gotten to him when they switched sides. So she also changed her playing style. Normally, she would be like, she'd want to win the point as quickly and efficiently as possible. Instead, she started drawing volleys out and basically put the ball in one corner and then put the ball in the other corner. So she had this old man running back and forth, chasing down these balls to purposefully tire them out. I Mean, that's just so cool that people are capable of doing that, you know? Like, I want the ball to go right here. So I'm going to go right there with this racket, even though the ball's coming at me at 70 miles an hour.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. So she wore him out. By the end. He was talking about hand cramps. The levity had kind of lessened because like you said, this 55 year old was an old, old man.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So remember, we so old. Right. Not 54, 55.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, okay. I got a couple more weeks.

[Josh Clark]

So Billie Jean King won and she won, like convincingly. Six, four, six, three, six, three. So remember, best out of five, she beat him in three straight sets.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And she got her 100,000 check from no less than George Foreman. Yeah. Who I read had hoped to use Bobby Riggs the Pig to demonstrate his new type of indoor grill, but was disappointed that he wasn't allowed to.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no.

[Josh Clark]

And so this was. It was just an immediate splash. Remember, this is a media spectacle. Everybody knows about this. 90 million people are watching. So the media just got right in on it again to let everybody know Billie Jean King won and let's celebrate her as a pro tennis player. And that's it.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. I think we know Josh's coy voice by now. That's not at all how it was reported. Of course, they kept reporting it sort of in the lowest common denominator way. The AP said that screaming, delirious women's livers lit up more brightly than the rocket shooting Astrodome scoreboard. Even my beloved New York Times said King collapsed, tears in her eyes and her husband's arms. Adding later, all of a sudden, she was a champion. A woman and a little girl all at the same time.

[Josh Clark]

That one brings, like, my eyes water from that one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's tough.

[Josh Clark]

That's so much worse than the Astrodome scoreboard. Right? I mean, neither one are great. Yeah, that one is just like. They meant that they were trying to, like, really be poignant there, and it's just like, good God.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they missed the mark.

[Josh Clark]

The thing about Bobby Riggs is he wasn't like. Well, she, you know, she obviously is some freak woman who. Who beat me. That's the only woman who could beat me. He did the opposite.

[Chuck Bryant]

He.

[Josh Clark]

He accepted the defeat with dignity and grace. Yeah, he had. He had a thing where he hopped over the net, win or lose, after the end of every match. And he did. He hopped right over the net and went up to her and he said, Confidentially to her that he underestimated her. And then in the press conference, he went on to basically say the same thing. Like, she beat him very clearly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. He said she was too strong for me. There have since been rumors that he threw the match as a gambler with 6 to 1 odds against that he threw the match and bet against himself. There was a report in, I think 2013. ESPN dug into that and that there were like, mafia figures he was working with to rig the odds. We'll never know the truth, but Bobby Riggs said he didn't throw it. Billie Jean King said that. I don't think he threw it. Like, she could tell what was going on emotionally on that court and could tell that he wanted to win and that he was losing. He might not have prepared like he should have. And I guess we'll never know the truth, but my money's on she beat him.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, mine too. But that rumor does have legs. Like, he did hang out with mob guys. He was a huge gambler. The idea was that he was indebted to the mob, like a hundred grand for in gambling debts and they would wipe it clean if he threw this. And that he was also betting on himself. And his son said it's possible. I don't really think that's true, but it's possible. Although his best friend is like, I won't even entertain that that's possible. Like, he just didn't do that. Yeah. But one of the things that people point to is he was making some terrible mistakes during the game. So either she got in his head and he was rattled or he was throwing it. It just seems like the general consensus is that, no, he. It seems pretty fringe that to. To genuinely believe that he threw the match.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I agree. Which I saw bits of that movie. I never saw the whole thing. The casting was incredible. Like, Steve Carell and Emma Stone were kind of perfect. I don't think the movie was reviewed, like, super favorably, but it looked okay.

[Josh Clark]

It was supposedly very true to life, actually.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Yeah. Billie Jean King, at least you told Hoda and Kathie Lee that it was pretty true to life. She said they got the essence of it. She said it's a movie, of course, but they nailed the essence.

[Josh Clark]

Man. Have you seen Begonia?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, boy. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

That is one of my new favorite movies. That is so good. I did not like. I can never remember his name. What is it?

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm glad you watched that. Oh, Jesse Plemons.

[Josh Clark]

No, no, no, the director.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, oh, oh. Yorgis Lanthimos.

[Josh Clark]

Thank you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wasn't that him?

[Josh Clark]

Let me try saying it, too. Yorgis. Lanthimos. I don't think I've ever tried it because I've always been like, I'm going to screw this up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I might have screwed it up, but that's what I said.

[Josh Clark]

I don't think so. I think you got it. Anyway. I did not like poor things. And I was like, oh, I don't know. Because I liked everything leading up to that, but not this. And then I saw this. I'm like, he's back.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's a great movie. I told you. I texted you to see Kinds of Kindness too. Have you seen that one yet?

[Josh Clark]

I still have not. No. I've been watching just tons of Rift tracks.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's hard to get out of that cycle once you get in.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so back to this after the. Back to the battle of the sexes after this. He wanted to kind of keep the media spotlight on him, so he tried to jump off the London Bridge in Arizona, but the sheriff there. So, like, you can't do that. So he had his picture taken on the lake below it in a raft. Billie Jean King went on to just keep being Billie Jean King. In 1974, she founded the Women's Sports foundation, which is a nonprofit for women's and girls in athletics. And she would end up sort of very publicly coming out of the closet after being married for a long time to a guy, not the Larry King, but her Larry King. In 1981, her longtime manager and assistant, Marilyn Barnett. It was very sad what happened. She filed a lawsuit against her, which revealed their affair that they had from 72 to 79 because she had fallen from a balcony of Billie Jean King's house in Malibu and lost the use of her legs and said that, hey, Billie Jean King promised to give me that house and support me financially. So she took her to court, and it got really messy.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I saw. So the fall from the house in Malibu I saw was an attempted suicide and that she had blackmailed Marilyn Barnett, had blackmailed Larry King and Billie Jean King before the lawsuit basically said, hey, if you don't want this to come out, let's settle before I actually go public with it. They didn't. She went public with it. And then to her great credit, after being outed in 1980, what, 81. 81. Billie Jean King said, you know what? We never promised her the Malibu house. But, yes, I'm gay. Larry and I have a. An open marriage, and we're actually going to stay together for the time being. And they stayed together until 1987, and they divorced because Billie Jean King fell for Ilana Kloss, a fellow tennis player, and they ended up getting married in 2018. So this is enormous. She was outed. She hadn't outed herself. Her choice to do so was removed, but she stood behind it. She didn't deny it. She didn't deny who she was. She said, yep, I'm gay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was pretty great. As far as equality and pay in pro sports, that's obviously still a thing. It was 2007 when all the Grand Slams agreed to pay women equally in tennis, and they still don't in some of the other big events. I think just a couple years ago, at the 2024 Canadian Open, there was a $5.9 million pool for the men and $2.5 million pool for women. And if you come back with an argument of like, yeah, well, the men's events are. They get more viewers and more advertising because they're in those better time slots, then you kind of just set it yourself. A lot of it has to do with the fact that they're in those better time slots, and they tend to schedule the women's events in lesser time slots. And so they don't get as much advertising. They don't have great maternity leave and professional tennis for women. So it's. You know, there's still battles to be fought, but Billie Jean King is still out there fighting them.

[Josh Clark]

One last little thing, Chuck, that always struck me before he died in 1995, I think, like, the night before he died, Billie Jean King visited Bobby Riggs to say goodbye.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was pretty great. They had a lifelong tie and friendship.

[Josh Clark]

So that's it. That's the battle of the sexes. It was. That was great. How about that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I feel like. I feel like Tim Robbins in Anchorman. Remember the p. He's like, you know, we at PBS are really down with women's lip.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Also, Steve Carell was in that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, He. He loves lamp.

[Chuck Bryant]

He loves lamp.

[Josh Clark]

Since Chuck said he loves lamp, I tricked him into it. He just unlocked listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. This illustration where I'm gonna apologize to Aoife from Ireland, because apparently we have here and there, dabbled in Irish erasure in our show, which is something that is a total accident and something that I'm gonna be more aware of moving forward. And here's the email.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hi, guys. Longtime listener here. I'm so sad to hear two Irish erasure moments in one episode and the third man syndrome episode. You use the example of the Endurance expedition to show how it works. And you called Ernest Shackleton British and if I'm not wrong, also Tom Crean. But both men were reborn in Irish. Shackleton was born in Kilke County Kildare. Did I say that right? I think I did.

[Josh Clark]

You said Kilkee.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, Kilkee, County Kildare, just under an hour from Dublin City. And Crean was born in Anniscall, County Kerry. This is a sore spot for Irish people as we are often so often called British and we don't take it so well. Example, look up Cillian Murphy also being called British. But we will forgive you however, and that is from Aoife and ifa. That is me being an ignorant person and I certainly know there's a difference and I have a hard time keeping track sometimes, but I need to do better at that. So apologies.

[Josh Clark]

Nice work, Chuck. I'm sure I've done that before too, so I want to apologize too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Great. Two apologies in one.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. And who is that from?

[Chuck Bryant]

That was from Aoife. Spelled A Oife.

[Josh Clark]

Beautiful. Thanks a lot Aoife. And if you want to be like Aoife and call us out on something, we stand for that. You can send it in an email to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

you listen to your favorite shows.

[Chuck Bryant]

This episode is brought to you by Audi. We all know that feeling. A change of plans, a new opportunity. Instead of overthinking, what if you just said yes with the all new Audi Q3? The answer is easy. It's made for the yes life with the power and room to handle whatever pops up. Yes to adventure, yes to right now. Because saying yes without hesitation, that's real luxury. The all new Audi Q3 made for the yes life. Learn [e-mail] if you were to try two Zero Sugar Colas with their labels removed and make the decision based on taste alone, do you know which one you'd choose?

[Josh Clark]

Well, last year Pepsi put that to the test for tens of thousands of people across the country in a revival of the iconic Pepsi challenge. And the results were clear. 66% of people preferred the taste of Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coke Zero Sugar. That's the idea behind the Pepsi paradox, that when labels and bias disappear, people prefer the taste of Pepsi zero sugar.

[Chuck Bryant]

It really makes you wonder, are you choosing the zero sugar cola that you actually prefer or are you settling for the label that you think you prefer.

[Josh Clark]

Go out and try Pepsi Zero Sugar today. You deserve taste. You deserve Pepsi.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

Spring cleaning is here and there's no better time to finally clear out the clutter taking up space in your home now. Trashee makes it easy and rewarding. Trashy lets you clean out clothes, accessories and textiles you no longer need. Just order a Trashy bag, fill it up and ship it back for free. Once you send it in, you'll earn Trashy cash rewards. You can redeem for gift cards, exclusive offers, or even donate to charity. It's fast, convenient and helps keep up to 95% of items out of landfills. Don't let clutter sit there any longer. Take the first step today. Get started now at Trashy I.O. and right now through the end of February, you can get free shipping and save $10 off membership. This is a limited time spring cleaning offer. Don't wait. Visit Trashy IO. That's Trashy IO.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.