Billie Jean King: Her Cup Runneth Over
Billie Jean King returns to New York tomorrow night for the BNP Paribas Showdown for the Billie Jean King Cup. As she has done for parts of the past five decades, she leads a group of players into New York to return women's tennis to sports' greatest stage at Madison Square Garden.
The BNP Paribas Showdown will be significant for many reasons including bringing back championship women's tennis to Madison Square Garden for the first time since 2000. The unique format for the Showdown brings Venus and Serena Williams, French Open Champion Ana Ivanovic and US Open finalist Jelena Jankovic to the World's Most Famous Arena for one night to battle it out for a record $1.2 million in prize money.
As part of the event, along with the United States Tennis Association, we have created Tennis Night in America which will see tennis celebrated across the country through parties at over 700 tennis clubs supporting Youth Registration Night which will be the largest one night grass roots program in the history of tennis.
And if that is not enough, the event will be broadcast internationally by HBO to over 75 countries bringing big time tennis back to the premium cable network for the first time since it last covered Wimbledon in 1999.
The common thread through all of this is Billie Jean King. The event is named for her; Tennis Night in America plays to her long articulated goal of bringing tennis to the masses; she will be one of the lead commentators (along with John McEnroe and Mary Carillo) on the HBO telecast and she will be honored on court during the evening.
As a co-promoter of the event along with three-time US Open Champion, Ivan Lendl and Madison Square Garden Sports Properties, it hit me last week how fortunate we are to be associated with Billie Jean. She just may have done more for sports in general than any other sporting figure in the last 50 years.
Considering she was:
- The first woman chosen as Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year
- The founder of the Women's Tennis Association
- The founder of the Women's Sports Foundation
- A leader in the Title IX movement
- The founder of World Team Tennis which is now in its 35th year
- A pioneer who brought instant credibility to women in sports by defeating Bobby Riggs in their famous Battle of the Sexes
And, oh by the way, she won 39 Grand Slam titles including 20 Wimbledon championships along the way. The USTA honored Billie Jean by naming the National Tennis Center after her several years ago and Life Magazine chose her as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th Century.
Billie Jean is a force. To know her is to be both uplifted and infected by her enthusiasm, energy, desire, passion and focus. All of that contributed to her success on the court for sure but it is her success off the court that we will celebrate tomorrow night and hopefully for many years to come as we strive to make the BJK Cup an annual event.
Billie Jean King just may be the single most important athlete of our time. She transcends tennis. She transcends sports. She transcends gender. The line from Jackie Robinson to Martin Luther King to Hilary Clinton running for President and Barack Obama being elected President runs right through Billie Jean.
She has paved the way for millions of people around the world, of every persuasion and of every nationality. My wife, Nancy Kerrigan, was a two time Olympic medalist in figure skating. She credits Billie Jean with opening doors for her. We have an 8 month old daughter who starts her life never thinking that there is something that she can't do. She doesn't know it but without Billie Jean, that may not be the case.
