1973: The Year the US Open Made Equal Prize Money the New Standard

The Year Everything Changed

The summer of 1973 was a pivotal moment for women's professional tennis. Billie Jean King had spent years building the argument that women's tennis was commercially valuable enough to deserve equal financial recognition, and in 1973 two events crystallized the debate in ways that made institutional action unavoidable. The first was the founding of the Women's Tennis Association in June 1973, which gave women's professional players a collective organizational voice for the first time. The second was the US Open's announcement that it would award equal prize money to men and women.

The US Open's decision preceded the Battle of the Sexes — the famous exhibition match between Billie Jean King and former Wimbledon champion Bobby Riggs, which took place in September 1973 — by a matter of weeks. The timing was not coincidental. The question of women's value in tennis was a live public debate, and the US Open's position was not an accident but a deliberate statement.

Billie Jean King and the Organizational Pressure

Billie Jean King's advocacy for equal pay in tennis had been active since the late 1960s. In 1970, she had been one of the founding members of the Original 9 — a group of women players who signed contracts for $1 each with an independent promoter rather than participate in a tournament where the women's prize money was a fraction of the men's. That act of collective self-organization was the seed from which the WTA grew and from which the pressure on Grand Slams would eventually grow irresistible.

King understood that equal prize money was not merely a financial question but a statement about the legitimacy and value of women's sport. If tournaments paid women less, they were implicitly communicating that women's tennis was a lesser product — a message that affected how sponsors, broadcasters, and the public valued it. Equal prize money was therefore both economically important and symbolically essential.

The Argument That Had to Be Won

The counter-argument — that men's matches were longer and therefore more valuable — was already well established in 1973 and would persist for decades. King and other advocates replied on multiple grounds: that prize money reflects market value, not labor time; that women's matches attracted comparable audiences; and that the disparity could not be justified on grounds of effort when the physical demands of women's professional tennis were substantial and the competitive quality was high.

The US Open's decision in 1973 did not immediately end the debate. The Australian Open, the French Open, and Wimbledon all continued paying men more, with Wimbledon holding out until 2007 — 34 years after the US Open's lead. The slow adoption across the other majors demonstrated how contentious the issue remained even after the US Open had settled it.

The Legacy of the Decision

The 1973 US Open equal prize money decision established a precedent that took decades to become universal but that ultimately transformed the economic landscape of women's professional sport. It demonstrated that equal pay was practically achievable, commercially viable, and institutionally manageable. Every subsequent argument for equal prize money in tennis — and in other sports — could point to the US Open as proof of concept.

The Arthur Ashe Stadium at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where the US Open is held, takes its name from two figures central to the 1973 moment: Arthur Ashe, who won that tournament, and Billie Jean King, whose advocacy had made the equal prize money announcement possible.