Billie Jean King

Billie Jean King (née Moffitt; born November 22, 1943), also known as BJK, is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. King won 39 Grand Slam titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. King was a member of the victorious United States team in seven Federation Cups and nine Wightman Cups. For three years, she was the U.S. captain in the Federation Cup.
King is an advocate of gender equality and has long been a pioneer for equality and social justice. In 1973, at the age of 29, she famously won the "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match against the 55-year-old Bobby Riggs. King was also the founder of the Women's Tennis Association and the Women's Sports Foundation. She was instrumental in persuading cigarette brand Virginia Slims to sponsor women's tennis in the 1970s and went on to serve on the board of their parent company Philip Morris in the 2000s.
Regarded by many as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, King was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987. The Fed Cup Award of Excellence was bestowed on her in 2010. In 1972, she was the joint winner, with John Wooden, of the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year award and was one of the Time Persons of the Year in 1975. She has also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year lifetime achievement award. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1990, and in 2006, the USTA National Tennis Center in New York City was renamed the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. In 2018, she won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2020, the Federation Cup was renamed the Billie Jean King Cup in her honor. In 2022, she was awarded the French Legion of Honour.
==Involvment in women's ice hockey==
On June 29, 2023, the Mark Walter Group and BJK Enterprises purchased the intellectual property and other key elements of the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), a professional women's hockey league in the United States and Canada. Headed by Mark Walter and King, respectively, both businesses had entered a partnership with the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) in May 2022, with the intent to create a new professional women's ice hockey league in North America. The buyout changed the landscape in North American women's professional hockey, as it resulted in a single league with stakeholders from both the PHF and PWHPA. The new league began on January 1, 2024, with the first game played between New York and Toronto in Toronto.
==References==
Category:Executives