--- title: Battle of the Sexes: What Really Happened, as Told in 1973 description: "The big evening maintained its P.T. Barnum air—at least until the principals squared off across the net," TIME reported after the match. canonical: https://time.com/4938913/battle-of-the-sexes-1973-report/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-19T13:00:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T17:23:51.609Z article:section: History og:title: Battle of the Sexes: What Really Happened, as Told in 1973 og:description: "The big evening maintained its P.T. Barnum air—at least until the principals squared off across the net" og:url: https://time.com/4938913/battle-of-the-sexes-1973-report/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7cc8f56f676e01f6/6988dd8c97cdff66636b26ab/tennis.jpeg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Battle of the Sexes og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Battle of the Sexes: What Really Happened, as Told in 1973 twitter:description: "The big evening maintained its P.T. Barnum air—at least until the principals squared off across the net" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7cc8f56f676e01f6/6988dd8c97cdff66636b26ab/tennis.jpeg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Billie Jean King Won the Battle of the Sexes, as Told in 1973  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Sep 19, 2017 1:00 PM UTC  Billie Jean King returns a shot against Bobby Riggs during the Battle of the Sexes Challenge Match at the Astrodome on Sept. 20, 1973 in Houston Billie Jean King returns a shot against Bobby Riggs during the Battle of the Sexes Challenge Match at the Astrodome on Sept. 20, 1973 in HoustonFocus On Sport/Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Sep 19, 2017 1:00 PM UTC The tennis match the world was watching this week in 1973 was a long time coming (and is now the subject of [a movie](http://time.com/4918594/best-new-fall-movies-2017/) with Emma Stone and Steve Carell, out Friday), but it was over relatively quickly. The so-called “battle of the sexes” of Sept. 20, 1973, which pitted Bobby Riggs against Billie Jean King, was over in three straight sets and just a little more than two hours. The sex part was, unsurprisingly, the focus of the attention: The pre-show entertainment for the 48 million television viewers included a rousing rendition of the song “[Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO23WBji%5FZ0),” and the competitors entered in fitting style, with King carried on a divan by a team of shirtless men and Riggs drawn by a group of the women he called his “bosom buddies.” But the game was, TIME [noted in the following week’s issue](http://time.com/vault/issue/1973-10-01/page/126/), much more of a mismatch in terms of age and athletic ability. Riggs was 55 and King, at the prime of her career, was 29\. And the result of that difference was quickly clear, as the magazine noted: --- > “” --- In the wake of the match, which all admitted in hindsight should not have really seemed suspenseful, Riggs himself admitted that he had been overconfident about facing a woman and had not prepared for the match. He had spent so much time promoting the idea of the battle of the sexes that he hadn’t really trained for the big day. Posing for a post-match photo, however, he kept up the hustle, asking for a rematch and for a kiss from Billie Jean King for the cameras. But, despite his showman’s patter, she had shown him — or, as one TIME reader [put it](http://time.com/vault/issue/1973-10-15/page/8/) in a letter to the editor, she had turned a male chauvinist pig into a meek “male chauvinist rabbit.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4938913/battle-of-the-sexes-1973-report/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4938913/battle-of-the-sexes-1973-report/"},"headline":"How Billie Jean King Won the Battle of the Sexes, as Told in 1973","datePublished":"2017-09-19T13:00:35.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T17:23:51.609Z","description":"\"The big evening maintained its P.T. 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