Women's Watch: Women's sports have made progress

I am a big fan of Billie Jean King. The former tennis great and advocate for gender equality in sports is an American icon who has lived an impressive life.

While I respect all of her accomplishments - on and off the court - this time the 73-year-old King misfired.

King has been doing interviews around the release of the movie "Battle of the Sexes," which is in theaters now and documents the gimmicky and highly publicized Battle of the Sexes grudge match that she won against Bobby Riggs in 1973. In a recent interview on ESPN's "Outside the Lines," King was asked about gender equality in sports today.

She's been arguing for years that women can do what men can do in sports, that female athletes should be paid as well as male athletes, and that women can be better than men, as she was against Riggs in 1973.

"Four decades later, what grade would you give us now in terms of gender equality," asked former soccer star Julie Foudy of ESPN.

"D ... or C," King said. "We're not there yet. Until we're there, we're not there."

I know what King means. Women's sports aren't yet what men's sports are. Aren't as popular, aren't as lucrative."

But is that what needs to happen for women's sports to be considered a success, to earn an A, or even a B?

I have been writing this column, the only one in the country to celebrate women's sports on a weekly basis, for 20 years now. I am a product of Title IX, I played basketball at Northwestern on a full scholarship and I spent nine years coaching my daughter and other girls in youth and feeder basketball.

I consider myself, like King, to be an advocate of women's sports and gender equality. And I don't see the gender equality movement being at D or C status. Sorry, Billie Jean.

I'm not sure what King wants. She never really said in the interview.

Does she want women's sports to be as supported and as religiously followed as men's sports? Does she want female athletes being paid exactly what their male counterparts are being paid?

Well, sure, that would be great for women. But sports is a business. Sports is a part of capitalism. The money and the fame and the attention follows what sells.

Women's sports can sell. Yes, I said can.

We've seen that with women's tennis, and somewhat with golf, with the Connecticut and Tennessee college basketball teams and the Women's Final Four, with some WNBA teams, and beach volleyball.

But for women's sports to sell at the rate and with the consistency of the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball, I can't see it. I wish that would happen, but it probably won't in my lifetime.

If more women cared about and supported women's sports like many men do about men's sports, then we'd be getting somewhere. Maybe female athletes would be earning more money and playing in front of bigger crowds.

I'm not sure that's in the cards, though. Not enough women support women's sports. And certainly not enough men do.

But that should not, absolutely should not, discount an entire movement that has been making huge strides since 1972, when Title IX was passed.

How can King give gender equality today a "D ... or C," when just six years before her match against Riggs, my mom was graduating from a huge high school in suburban Chicago without ever playing an interscholastic sport? There were no varsity sports for girls offered at her high school in 1967. Zero. None. Zilch.

Her only option do was intramural volleyball.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and by the time I was entering high school in the mid-1980s there were many varsity sports for girls to consider. And many girls, like myself, continued playing in college on full scholarships.

At Northwestern in the 1990s, female athletes were treated very well. We got shoes and gear and tutors and stayed in nice hotels on the road, just like the men.

I cover women's college basketball teams who get more and special treatment: they fly charters, have many, if not all, of their games televised, take overseas trips, and pay their coaches million-dollar salaries.

Unlike me, female athletes in college now have options to continue their athletic careers professionally. There is the WNBA, a pro softball league, pro soccer and pro beach volleyball, as well as the well-established pro tennis and pro golf tours.

And all this is worth a "D ... or C?"

Geez! Guess my grading scale is a little more generous.

Yes, like King says, we're not there yet. But I'd give it a B+.

Finals repeat:

Don't forget to check out the WNBA Finals on Sunday, a rematch between Minnesota and Los Angeles. Game 1 of the best-of-five series will be hosted by the Lynx (2:30 p.m., ABC 7).

Last year, behind former Naperville Central great Candace Parker, the Sparks won the title in dramatic fashion.

Former Sky center Sylvia Fowles, who was recently named the league's MVP, leads the Lynx, which is seeking its fourth title in seven years.

pbabcock@dailyherald.com