Billie Jean King: Nine of us signed a $1 contract in 1970. September 23rd, 1970, nine— nine players, and we have a very, um, I don’t know if you’ve seen that photo. We’re holding up a $1 bill. That is the birth of women’s professional tennis the way you know it today. That is the birth. The very next year in ’71, we had a tour. We finally had a tour, a lot of tournaments, you know, in one year. And I told Larry in December of ’70, I said, “You know what? If I can win over 100,000 next year, maybe they’ll watch the tour. They’ll keep track every week, and then they’ll get to know all of us players, and then they’ll think about women’s tennis, and then they’ll think—” And the kids growing up will start to see there’s opportunity for them, and I’m thinking about all these things. And so I said, “You know what? I’m really going to try to make a— over a hundred. I think the top male athletes make about 150 or whatever. But if I can make over a hundred, I think we might— we might get noticed. We have to get people to watch us, and hopefully it’ll inspire children to have the dream that they can do it, and there will be a place for them, you know, as a pro when they grow up, not what I grew up with as an amateur.” So, I’m thinking, if we can do all these things— but I— I want to win over 100,000. I don’t know how I’m going to do that, because usually the winner got 1,800 at our tournaments. If you won doubles, it was 500 for the team, so you got 250. So you’re around 2,000 if you can win. That means if you win everything.
And then Gladys Heldman is who we signed the $1 contract with. Because she’s a publisher, Larry said she’ll know all the CEOs, and she knows all the— you know, she’ll know all the advertisers, and that’s what you need to know. You know, that’s how we’re going to make this happen. And Larry and I had already done a couple of tournaments, so I knew what it felt like to be on the other side, not just the playing side— the ownership side of a tournament, which I, I loved. I love business. So, I was right off and running with that. So, I— I had that in my head. We’re starting the tour. Gladys didn’t know how she was going to sign us. I said, “Just sign us up for a dollar as a contract pro, because that way we can legally do that.” And she says, “Well, a dollar? You guys aren’t going to sign?” I said, “Yes, we will.” I said, “That’s my job. I have to get the other players to say yes.” So you’ll see this $1 bill we’re holding up. That’s how that happened, because Gladys goes, “I can’t afford you guys.” I said, “Can you afford a dollar?” Because Larry’s a lawyer— he’s going to law school. So I know that it’s just as binding as a trillion dollars. And she, “You would do that for a dollar?” I said, “Yes, we would. Are you kidding? We’ll sign up with you in a heartbeat.”