Tennis legend, shareholder of the Los Angeles Dodgers in baseball, the Los Angeles Sparks in the WNBA in basketball and Angel City FC in soccer. And now she wants to establish a women’s hockey league in the United States. This is the empire of the King.
She turned tennis — and sports in general — into her relentless fight for equality between women and men, but Billie Jean King also wanted to be a pioneer in law firms, because her businesses now want to. in football, basketball and baseball to unite ice hockey. A new professional women’s hockey league in the United States and Canada.
That’s the intriguing project King is now involved in and seeks to simulate on ice the promising momentum of women’s sports in the United States with examples like WNBA basketball or National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) soccer.
The Athletic portal revealed this week that the former tennis player and her partner Mark Walter are in official talks with the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association (PWHPA) to form a new top-level competition.
There are still some details about the project, but the idea they are working on suggests a six -team league with 23 players per team.32 games to be played from January to April, a four-team playoff, and a median salary for players of $ 55,000.
PWHPA emerged in 2019 with a mission, according to its website, to “promote, foster and support a unique and viable professional women’s hockey league in North America (…) and provide a united voice for to female players advocating for the creation of a sustainable professional league.
This association emerged in the same year when the CWHL (Canadian Women’s Hockey League) disappeared and maintains a very complex relationship with the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF).
Formerly known as the National Women’s Hockey League (NWHL), the PHF is currently the only career option for female hockey players in the US and Canada.
However, PWHPA recently decided to end its negotiations with PHF, due to its doubts regarding the funding and viability of its project, and chose to take the initiative on its own on the advice of Deloitte and Scotiabank and in the presence of King as a huge incentive.
WINNING SHOTS IN BUSINESS
WTA founder, racket legend and former world number one, King would have gone down in sports history without a problem just because of his good resume in tennis and his ongoing struggle for equality.
Perhaps the best example of this is that the old Tennis Federation Cup has been called the Billie Jean King Cup since 2020 as a tribute to his legacy.
However, King’s concerns have recently led him to other sports, even if it’s from the engine room.. Under the umbrella of Billie Jean King Enterprises, King is a shareholder in the Los Angeles Dodgers, one of the most successful and powerful franchises in MLB; and also from the Los Angeles Sparks, triple WNBA champions.
Until her ideas for hockey were identified, her most recent business venture was Angel City FC, the newly launched and highly ambitious women’s soccer team in Los Angeles.
With its April debut on the NWSL before approximately 22,000 spectators, Angel City kicked off a team with actress Natalie Portman as the main promoter and with other Hollywood and sports stars behind -in addition to King himself – like Eva Longoria, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Chastain, Serena Williams, Lindsey Vonn or Candace Parker.
For his entry into hockey, King had the support of Mark Walter, co-owner of the Dodgers along with Todd Boehly and who, with him, had just bought Chelsea into the Premier League.
Waiting to see what the fulfillment of his plans for hockey, King at 78 remains a highly respected and recognized voice in U.S. sports.. and from around the world, something that can also be seen in his more than half a million followers on Twitter.
Source: La Verdad
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
