Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes in 1973 before ninety million television viewers and proved that women’s athletics deserved to be taken seriously. She founded the Women’s Tennis Association, fought for equal prize money, and built the infrastructure of professional women’s sports from scratch. Then she was outed against her will, lost every endorsement she had, and paid a personal price for the revolution she had led.

This episode traces King from her working-class Long Beach childhood through the Battle of the Sexes, the founding of the WTA, the forced outing, and the decades of advocacy that made her the most important figure in the history of women’s professional sports.

• King’s working-class origins and her early recognition that women’s tennis was treated as second-class
• The Battle of the Sexes match against Bobby Riggs and its impact on American culture
• Founding the WTA, fighting for Title IX, and building women’s professional sports from nothing
• The forced outing, the lost endorsements, and the personal cost of being a pioneer