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A Necessary Spectacle: Billie Jean King, Bobby Riggs, and the Tennis Match That Leveled the Game
Billie Jean King didn’t want to play Bobby Riggs. He baited and begged her for months while she ignored his catcalls and challenges. But after Margaret Court’s ignominious defeat in the so-called Mother’s Day Massacre, Billie knew what she had to do despite the personal and professional take on the self-proclaimed male chauvinist pig and slay the myths about women and weakness. And so it was that King’s acquiescence led to the Battle of the Sexes, one of the most wildly surreal moments of the decadent 1970s. The worldwide event, showcasing three sets of tennis in a raucous Houston Astrodome, forever changed the social landscape for women.
In A Necessary Spectacle , Selena Roberts, one of the country’s finest sportswriters and the only female sports columnist in the New York Times ’ history, has created a masterful and entertaining journey through the 1970s and beyond, capturing the color and passion, tackiness and anger, prejudice and progress of an American culture in transition. At the heart of the story lies the intersection of two complex Billie Jean King, the daughter of a homemaker and a firefighter who grew up in the Norman Rockwell tradition of the 1950s; and Bobby Riggs, the gambling son of a fundamentalist minister who won everlasting fame as a card-carrying sexist—not because he believed women to be inferior, but because he craved attention.
Roberts enjoyed unprecedented access to the characters in this story, including numerous in-depth interviews with Billie Jean King and her former husband, Larry, as well as the friends and family of Bobby Riggs, who died in 1995. Essential details and insights also were provided through hours of conversation with key figures in the women’s rights movement and Title IX fight, including Gloria Steinem and Donna de Varona, and with tennis legends of the 1970s, such as Chris Evert, Margaret Court, Rosie Casals, and others. This book reveals the outsize personalities of Billie and Bobby; the intensity and intricacy of the Kings’ longtime marriage; the simmering social revolution that pitted chauvinists against feminists and tennis players against each other; and a wrenching coming-out story recounted in intimate detail by Billie Jean King for the first time. By the end of the book, Roberts has traced the cultural continuum of Billie and Bobby’s night at the Astrodome. She relates its significance to the day Richard Williams began hitting bald tennis balls to his pigtailed daughters, Venus and Serena; to the glorious afternoon when more than 90,000 fans watched as the U.S. women’s soccer team won the 1999 World Cup; and, ultimately, to the present day’s second-generation battle to keep Title IX alive. The book’s poignant last scene between Billie and Bobby serves to remind us how much of an effect that 1973 match—and the passion it fueled for change—continues to have on American society, showing how necessary it was, and how necessary it remains.
1973. The Battle of the Sexes.
It was the match that changed everything. In this riveting book by New York Times sports columnist Selena Roberts, the whole spectacle returns, larger than life and more important than ever. This story reaches beyond two outsize and utterly fascinating personalities who emerged during a simmering social revolution that pitted chauvinists against feminists. It also chronicles the complex, longtime marriage of Billie Jean and Larry King; the cavalcade of issues that rocked the 1970s, from equal pay to abortion rights; and a wrenching coming-out story recounted in intimate detail by Billie Jean King for the first time.
In A Necessary Spectacle , Selena Roberts, one of the country’s finest sportswriters and the only female sports columnist in the New York Times ’ history, has created a masterful and entertaining journey through the 1970s and beyond, capturing the color and passion, tackiness and anger, prejudice and progress of an American culture in transition. At the heart of the story lies the intersection of two complex Billie Jean King, the daughter of a homemaker and a firefighter who grew up in the Norman Rockwell tradition of the 1950s; and Bobby Riggs, the gambling son of a fundamentalist minister who won everlasting fame as a card-carrying sexist—not because he believed women to be inferior, but because he craved attention.
Roberts enjoyed unprecedented access to the characters in this story, including numerous in-depth interviews with Billie Jean King and her former husband, Larry, as well as the friends and family of Bobby Riggs, who died in 1995. Essential details and insights also were provided through hours of conversation with key figures in the women’s rights movement and Title IX fight, including Gloria Steinem and Donna de Varona, and with tennis legends of the 1970s, such as Chris Evert, Margaret Court, Rosie Casals, and others. This book reveals the outsize personalities of Billie and Bobby; the intensity and intricacy of the Kings’ longtime marriage; the simmering social revolution that pitted chauvinists against feminists and tennis players against each other; and a wrenching coming-out story recounted in intimate detail by Billie Jean King for the first time. By the end of the book, Roberts has traced the cultural continuum of Billie and Bobby’s night at the Astrodome. She relates its significance to the day Richard Williams began hitting bald tennis balls to his pigtailed daughters, Venus and Serena; to the glorious afternoon when more than 90,000 fans watched as the U.S. women’s soccer team won the 1999 World Cup; and, ultimately, to the present day’s second-generation battle to keep Title IX alive. The book’s poignant last scene between Billie and Bobby serves to remind us how much of an effect that 1973 match—and the passion it fueled for change—continues to have on American society, showing how necessary it was, and how necessary it remains.
1973. The Battle of the Sexes.
It was the match that changed everything. In this riveting book by New York Times sports columnist Selena Roberts, the whole spectacle returns, larger than life and more important than ever. This story reaches beyond two outsize and utterly fascinating personalities who emerged during a simmering social revolution that pitted chauvinists against feminists. It also chronicles the complex, longtime marriage of Billie Jean and Larry King; the cavalcade of issues that rocked the 1970s, from equal pay to abortion rights; and a wrenching coming-out story recounted in intimate detail by Billie Jean King for the first time.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published August 16, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 3, 2019
Happy Women’s History Month. All March I devote myself to reading only women’s authors as I celebrate diverse women from around the globe. Some years the focus has been women of color and the tapestry of world views that they bring to the literary table. Other years I’ve chosen to reread my favorite books by women authors that I’ve read over the reads. Regardless of what I choose to read, March is always my favorite reading month of the year and I spend in advance months organizing my reading lineup. This year (2019) is a focus on nonfiction, and I thought that I would start by reading about a subject that has been near and dear to me for my entire life: women in sports. While baseball is my first sports love and always will be, I have always rooted for women athletes to achieve lofty goals, going as far as making my bas mitzvah theme women in sports. I should have made the theme trailblazing women because in the early 1990s, women had not yet enjoyed the fruits of success enjoyed by 1996 female olympians. Female athletes would have their day soon enough. Yet, the 1990s me would not have been in the position to play softball, keep basketball statistics, or root for the leading athletes of the day if an event did not occur in 1973. Journalist Selena Roberts takes readers back to the fabled Battle of the Sexes tennis match and what it meant for women in sports and society at a turbulent time in America.
Bobby Riggs won Wimbledon in 1938 as an amateur and quickly rose to fame and fortune as a top American athlete. At the time, tennis was one of America’s leading sports and the best players achieved many accolades. Yet, men’s tennis was not organized then as it is today, and players had to maintain amateur status if they wanted to compete on national tours. Over time prize money grew to reflect sports’ place in society; however, athletes’ large paydays were not in place when Riggs was at the height of his competitive career. He would fade into the background of the mind of athletic fans for the next thirty years when he attempted a comeback on the newly formed seniors tour. By then, in the late 1960s, male stars as Rod Laver and Arthur Ashe had
started earning top dollar for competing on a national tour, and Riggs desired comparable prize money for the seniors. In the 1960s he had to compete with a group who was not at considered competition when he was a star: the women.
Billie Jean Moffitt wanted to do great things with her life and proclaimed as much to her mother when she was five years old. She had just witnessed Queen Elizabeth’s coronation on television and desired that there would be a time in her future when millions of people would watch her the same way. As the daughter of a firefighter and a homemaker, Moffitt’s future did not seem all too promising, that is until she discovered tennis. A tomboy who beat all of the boys in neighborhood games, Billie Jean was encouraged to excel and reach for the stars by her conservative parents. Bill and Betty Moffitt could not have envisioned that they would one day be the parents of both a trailblazing tennis star and a major league pitcher, but they encouraged sports participation for both of their children, and eventually the ballgames in the neighborhood lead to great things for Billie Jean and her brother Randy.
Billie Jean reached stardom and adulthood at a time when Betty Friedan had recently published The Feminine Mystique and encouraged women to leave their homes and take on active roles in society. Billie Jean did not initially ascribe to the feminist movement but her husband Larry King did, and together they promoted a fledgling women’s tennis tour. Billie Jean was the biggest women’s tennis player on the planet in the late 1960s and early 1970s, having won the majors and excelling on tour. Encouraged by both her husband and Betty Friedan, Billie Jean King demanded equal prize money for the women on the new national tennis tour. The men, the old guard, would not budge, and Billie and the Original Nine would go on to form the Virginia Slims Tour which lead to the formation of the Women’s Tennis Association. Matches and events would be played independent of the men and eventually lead to bigger paydays for the women. It was in this time period that Bobby Riggs emerged from the shadows and believed that senior men deserved their due well before a group of women merited equal prize money as the men. To settle things once and for all, Riggs demanded to play Billie Jean in a one time television event to show that men were still supreme.
Riggs had first opposed Margaret Court much to Billie’s chagrin. Court just did not understand the woman’s movement and got caught up in Riggs’ psychological mind games. Riggs won their match but wanted to face Billie Jean. At first she demurred but eventually agreed to face him in a made for tv spectacle on September 25, 1973 in the Houston, Astrodome. Billie Jean knew that the future of the women’s movement was at stake even if her opponent was a fifty four year old has been. She agreed to be the torch bearer and preparations for the Battle of the Sexes had begun. Both Billie Jean as a feminist queen and Riggs as a male chauvinist pig played their roles to perfection leading up to the match, which Billie won in straight sets. It was indeed a victory for the feminist movement.
Roberts lauds Billie Jean King and role she played with the formation of the Women’s Sports Foundation and as an advocate of Title IX, a law signed in 1974 making it illegal for one gender to get preferential treatment or more money from public institutions for any programs; this included division one college sports. As one who had successfully navigated larger prize money for women on the tennis tour, King was Title IX’s biggest star. Roberts goes on to show how twenty years later both the Williams sisters and the 1999 US Women’s Soccer team became beneficiaries of King’s groundbreaking work. Rather than earning token pennies, women athletes in all sports make millions of dollars and in some cases are as visible as their male contemporaries.
Critics will point out that Roberts is one sided in her reporting, citing her refusal to hear male athletes’ perspective and coming across as a militant feminist. Using the example of King’s openness to come out as a lesbian later in her career along with her friendship with Elton John, Roberts is the type of feminist who gives centrist feminists a bad reputation. Despite giving a one sided story of the Battle of the Sexes and cheering for Billie Jean King along the way, I found Roberts’ story of the early history of United States tennis and how it lead to the Battle of the Sexes to be enlightening. If Bobby Riggs’ wins the celebrated match, perhaps there is no Title IX, no 1996 women’s olympics, and no WNBA. Girls today would not have the same opportunities to compete for sports scholarships as boys, limiting their opportunities on the playing field. Billie Jean King understood the magnitude of her role and played it perfectly. She was what women’s sports needed in the 1970s to be a beacon for the women’s movement and an appropriate lead for a women’s history month lineup.
3 stars
- 4.5 stars for story, place in history
-2.5 stars for one sidedness of author
Bobby Riggs won Wimbledon in 1938 as an amateur and quickly rose to fame and fortune as a top American athlete. At the time, tennis was one of America’s leading sports and the best players achieved many accolades. Yet, men’s tennis was not organized then as it is today, and players had to maintain amateur status if they wanted to compete on national tours. Over time prize money grew to reflect sports’ place in society; however, athletes’ large paydays were not in place when Riggs was at the height of his competitive career. He would fade into the background of the mind of athletic fans for the next thirty years when he attempted a comeback on the newly formed seniors tour. By then, in the late 1960s, male stars as Rod Laver and Arthur Ashe had
started earning top dollar for competing on a national tour, and Riggs desired comparable prize money for the seniors. In the 1960s he had to compete with a group who was not at considered competition when he was a star: the women.
Billie Jean Moffitt wanted to do great things with her life and proclaimed as much to her mother when she was five years old. She had just witnessed Queen Elizabeth’s coronation on television and desired that there would be a time in her future when millions of people would watch her the same way. As the daughter of a firefighter and a homemaker, Moffitt’s future did not seem all too promising, that is until she discovered tennis. A tomboy who beat all of the boys in neighborhood games, Billie Jean was encouraged to excel and reach for the stars by her conservative parents. Bill and Betty Moffitt could not have envisioned that they would one day be the parents of both a trailblazing tennis star and a major league pitcher, but they encouraged sports participation for both of their children, and eventually the ballgames in the neighborhood lead to great things for Billie Jean and her brother Randy.
Billie Jean reached stardom and adulthood at a time when Betty Friedan had recently published The Feminine Mystique and encouraged women to leave their homes and take on active roles in society. Billie Jean did not initially ascribe to the feminist movement but her husband Larry King did, and together they promoted a fledgling women’s tennis tour. Billie Jean was the biggest women’s tennis player on the planet in the late 1960s and early 1970s, having won the majors and excelling on tour. Encouraged by both her husband and Betty Friedan, Billie Jean King demanded equal prize money for the women on the new national tennis tour. The men, the old guard, would not budge, and Billie and the Original Nine would go on to form the Virginia Slims Tour which lead to the formation of the Women’s Tennis Association. Matches and events would be played independent of the men and eventually lead to bigger paydays for the women. It was in this time period that Bobby Riggs emerged from the shadows and believed that senior men deserved their due well before a group of women merited equal prize money as the men. To settle things once and for all, Riggs demanded to play Billie Jean in a one time television event to show that men were still supreme.
Riggs had first opposed Margaret Court much to Billie’s chagrin. Court just did not understand the woman’s movement and got caught up in Riggs’ psychological mind games. Riggs won their match but wanted to face Billie Jean. At first she demurred but eventually agreed to face him in a made for tv spectacle on September 25, 1973 in the Houston, Astrodome. Billie Jean knew that the future of the women’s movement was at stake even if her opponent was a fifty four year old has been. She agreed to be the torch bearer and preparations for the Battle of the Sexes had begun. Both Billie Jean as a feminist queen and Riggs as a male chauvinist pig played their roles to perfection leading up to the match, which Billie won in straight sets. It was indeed a victory for the feminist movement.
Roberts lauds Billie Jean King and role she played with the formation of the Women’s Sports Foundation and as an advocate of Title IX, a law signed in 1974 making it illegal for one gender to get preferential treatment or more money from public institutions for any programs; this included division one college sports. As one who had successfully navigated larger prize money for women on the tennis tour, King was Title IX’s biggest star. Roberts goes on to show how twenty years later both the Williams sisters and the 1999 US Women’s Soccer team became beneficiaries of King’s groundbreaking work. Rather than earning token pennies, women athletes in all sports make millions of dollars and in some cases are as visible as their male contemporaries.
Critics will point out that Roberts is one sided in her reporting, citing her refusal to hear male athletes’ perspective and coming across as a militant feminist. Using the example of King’s openness to come out as a lesbian later in her career along with her friendship with Elton John, Roberts is the type of feminist who gives centrist feminists a bad reputation. Despite giving a one sided story of the Battle of the Sexes and cheering for Billie Jean King along the way, I found Roberts’ story of the early history of United States tennis and how it lead to the Battle of the Sexes to be enlightening. If Bobby Riggs’ wins the celebrated match, perhaps there is no Title IX, no 1996 women’s olympics, and no WNBA. Girls today would not have the same opportunities to compete for sports scholarships as boys, limiting their opportunities on the playing field. Billie Jean King understood the magnitude of her role and played it perfectly. She was what women’s sports needed in the 1970s to be a beacon for the women’s movement and an appropriate lead for a women’s history month lineup.
3 stars
- 4.5 stars for story, place in history
-2.5 stars for one sidedness of author
April 10, 2018
Billie Jean King embodies an impressive chunk of the history I’ve lived through. Women’s rights, gay rights, girls’ rights (with Title IX), transgender rights, all while respecting and loving men very much. She has become a symbol of the good a celebrity can sprinkle across a culture. Noblesse oblige of her own volition and also in response to regular, cruel invasions of her privacy. She made a lot of lemonade for us to drink. On top of all that, she was a an intelligent, savvy world-class athlete, wife, daughter, sister, friend, mentor. I’m thankful she now knows how grateful her fans are and that she’s comfortable out of the closet.
I was very excited in 1973 during the build up for the Battle of the Sexes between BJK and Bobby Riggs. I LOVED it. I bought Riggs’ chauvinist pig persona hook, line and sinker as a seven-year-old. [He was fun to hate but I’m glad they were actually good friends.] I looked up to BJK, especially her rolling with the punches, her prowess on and off the court and the dresses! Those tennis dresses and, then, the blue suede shoes, were the best candy. Sliced Bobby’s Sugar Daddies!
I was very excited in 1973 during the build up for the Battle of the Sexes between BJK and Bobby Riggs. I LOVED it. I bought Riggs’ chauvinist pig persona hook, line and sinker as a seven-year-old. [He was fun to hate but I’m glad they were actually good friends.] I looked up to BJK, especially her rolling with the punches, her prowess on and off the court and the dresses! Those tennis dresses and, then, the blue suede shoes, were the best candy. Sliced Bobby’s Sugar Daddies!
October 11, 2008
The scope of this social history goes way beyond a tennis match of the 70's. I learned some wonderful context for existing knowledge of the modern women's movement. The cultural references were easy for me to "get" having lived through most of the events in the book (obvioulsy NOT Bobby Riggs Wimbledon wins). Even though some of the allusions here may go over the heads of a much younger reader, the value to a younger reader is the lesson of the intense 1970's struggle for rights for women in general. I was only vaguely aware of the huge challenge that Title IX faced in the early 90's. Very scary part of the book. Selena Roberts' writing is clear, the story is full of tension, the topics vary from Billie Jean's marriage, to the rise of Venus and Serena Williams, to the US Women's Soccer winning a nail-biting World Cup championship in 1999, benefactors of BJK's fight for women's equality in sports education. Lots to love in this book. I'm a slow reader, but couldn't put it down and read it in less than 3 days.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 21, 2017
Uneven chapters, some well done and interesting, some light and struggling. Overall an interesting picture of the Battle of the Sexes and the birth of Title IX and the personalities around it, mostly focusing on Billie Jean King. More episodic than possessing a narrative through line.
September 4, 2007
Selena Roberts is the finest writer in the sports department of the New York Times. I'm not kidding, nor exaggerating. This book is well served by a clean style developed through years of working with restrictive deadlines word counts. The prose lacks extraneous belly button gazing, but she does recreate the time and place when Billie Jean King picked up women, put them on her shoulders, and won a tennis match. It's also interesting that Roberts follows King's contributions through the Williams sisters, a nice history of Title IX, and the 1999 Women's World Cup team. Excellent and fast read.
May 12, 2026
The subject matter is what got this up to 3 stars. The writing initially pulled me in, but as the book progressed, the structure was choppy and confusing. This could have and should have been so much better.
I was surprised to learn that Billie and Bobby became and remained great friends until the end of his life. I also didn't realize that Bobby was a pro player himself (most of what I knew about him was that he said that any man could beat any woman at tennis which made me assume he wasn't a pro, I guess?)
I was surprised to learn that Billie and Bobby became and remained great friends until the end of his life. I also didn't realize that Bobby was a pro player himself (most of what I knew about him was that he said that any man could beat any woman at tennis which made me assume he wasn't a pro, I guess?)
January 23, 2014
This book is really interesting - while most of it is about Bille Jean King, a lot of the book deals with the Title IX history and the scary time when it was nearly revoked. It's still hard to believe that we are just a few generations removed from a time when women weren't guaranteed athletic opportunities in schools.
August 25, 2016
Really wanted to love this book as I'm a huge fan of BJK, the Original 9, Tennis and women's sports in general but I found it a disappointing mishmash. A couple of the chapters - on the Williams sisters and Title IX - appear to belong to a different book and are included here as filler. Grace Lichtenstein's Long Way Baby is a much better book about the early women's circuit
October 8, 2009
I thought the quality of the writing was pedestrian and the layout of the chapters was choppy and unorganized. A earth-shifting event in the history of sports, and feminism, deserves a telling that is more emotionally-charged.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews