It was a momentous milestone, brought about in no small part by an equally momentous champion, Billie Jean King. In 1973, the US Open became the first of the four Grand Slam tournaments to offer equal prize money to men and women competitors, a pioneering move that shook the sport and began to reshape it toward a more equitable future.
As we this year celebrate the 50th anniversary of this important US Open milestone, USOpen.org will feature a series of reflections upon other major markers of equality in tennis across this past half-century, each of which helped to nudge the sport forward toward the grand goal of a more level playing field for all. In this installment, we look back on when the home of the US Open, the USTA National Tennis Center, was officialy renamed in King's honor in 2006.
It was an opening night ceremony befitting tennis royalty. On Aug. 28, 2006, in front of a packed crowd inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, trailblazer, living legend and 39-time major champion Billie Jean King stood proudly on court as the USTA officially rechristened its sprawling Flushing Meadows-based facility—the longtime home of the US Open—as the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Flanked by her mother, Betty Moffitt; her partner, the 1976 US Open doubles champion Ilana Kloss; as well as tennis stars past and present, like Jimmy Connors, Chris Evert, John McEnroe, Venus Williams, King watched as a celebration meticulously planned in her honor transpired. Diana Ross performed “Respect,” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough." Michael Bloomberg, then the mayor of New York, delivered remarks. And in a particularly heartfelt tribute to King's beloved firefighter father Bill Moffitt, who had passed away just three months earlier, Long Beach, Calif.'s fire department's color guard flew in from across the country to make a special appearance.
The magnitude of the event “brought me to tears,” King wrote in her 2021 autobiography, “All In." “... By the time Mayor Bloomberg led me to the podium for my speech, I admit I was a bit overwhelmed. My voice was a little soft as I started, and someone in the crowd shouted, ‘Louder!’
“‘Well, that’s the first time anybody’s said that to me,’ I said with a laugh.”
She wasn’t lying. Undoubtedly, King’s voice—unwavering, emphatic and resounding over decades—directly led to the momentous occasion at hand. After all, what hadn’t she accomplished in the sport as an athlete, activist, advocate and ambassador?
Prior to announcing the change, the USTA internally discussed different ways to pay tribute to King’s remarkable legacy of leadership and service. Could they name a building after her? A court? As Arlen Kantarian, the then-CEO of the USTA, told the New York Times regarding the organization’s different ideas: “You’re talking about coming up with something that measured up to the impact Billie Jean has had on tennis and society.”
The decision to add King’s name to the most famous tennis facility in the country certainly measured up, and the gesture ultimately carried more weight than honoring one singular legacy. King, after all, was a female athlete and member of the LGBTQ+ community who grew up playing on public courts. Historically, she did not fit the mold of the type of person who typically saw his—yes, his—name enshrined on the entrance sign of a premier American sporting complex.
At the podium during the ceremony on opening night, King more than understood the greater significance and said as much as she continued her remarks, while also emphasizing the importance of diversity and equality in the game.
“Now that I had my name on the place, I wanted to invite everybody to come out and play: people of all genders and colors, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities,” she wrote in “All In." “No one has to be on the outside looking in, not in tennis or anywhere else.”
To underscore her point, she ended her speech that night with a galvanizing rallying cry, one that everyone could hear all the way in the bleachers: “My house is your house,” she said. “This is our house.”
Seventeen years on, King still considers the USTA’s renaming of the NTC one of the greatest honors of her life. Of course, even in her gratitude, she’s well aware that moments like the one that occurred on Aug. 28, 2006 are exceedingly rare for women, particularly in the United States, and she hopes more major American sporting facilities will one day follow suit. She’s not the only deserving female athlete, after all.
“To be a part of something that had never happened before that night was not lost on this lover of history,” she wrote in a 2020 Instagram post on the 14th anniversary of that opening night ceremony. “I became the first woman to have a major [American] sports venue named in her honor. More of this, please!”
