Tennis,
or Bridge,
Anyone?

by Matthew
Granovetter

To catch the youth market, says King, bridge has to be seen as practical. Youth has to have heroes who are recognized and honored by society, players who clearly are the best and earn a great deal of money. Inspiration is the way to turn the next generation on to bridge, and the engine of our ship is prize money.

Currently the top pros in bridge make their living by being paid fees under the table by their wealthy clients, who pay for the privilege of playing with an expert partner, often to have a better chance to win one the amateur tournaments. King calls this corrupt, similar to the way tennis was before prize-money tennis.

Just the fact the top players today make a serious living from the game, but no one knows it, is ample reason for changing over from under the table fees to on top of the table prize money. I saw in tennis that when the fees went from under the table to on top the table, the tennis players gained respect from the top down. Starting with Rod Laver being the first tennis player to earn $100,000 in prize money in 1968, the morale and pride of all tennis players, country club to public courts sky-rocketed. When Billie Jean King became the first woman in the history of American sports to win $100,000 in prize money in 1971, it was a watershed event for two generations of young American women who followed in her footsteps.

But tennis is a spectator sport, object many observers. People can watch tennis and understand the game. You hit the ball from one side of the court to the other. Bridge is much more complicated, played with a deck of cards, where four people battle it out at the card table. Can watching bridge be fun?

Have you ever watched women's tennis? asks King. How long can you watch? It's boring compared to the excitement of bridge, and the rules of bridge can easily be learned. I've been teaching an e-mail correspondence course on Bridgetoday.com and hundreds of my students have been learning easily in the comfort of their own homes. In addition, they can play on computer on OKbridge or one of the other Internet bridge clubs. Bridge has come a long way, too.

So what's the missing ingredient? What will take bridge that final inch into the limelight, as Goren accomplished in his day?

The answer to that, says Larry, is sponsorship. For starters, my wife Nancy [who King met while she was a promoter for the Virginia Slims Tennis tour] and I are running events in the top 20 television markets. But we need a sponsor like Virginia Slims. As soon as we have at least $100,000 prize money per week, we'll be able to promote bridge seriously. Three years of proper promotion and marketing to the top 20 markets will make a serious dent in repositioning bridge in the American psyche.

King has the track record, but can he do it again? He was involved at the ground level in tennis, triathalons and roller hockey. He was the largest promoter of women's tennis tournaments in the world in the early 1970's. He was the president and commissioner of World Team Tennis, which reached 5,000,000 in-person spectators during 1974-1978, plus television viewers. He founded the present-day edition of World Team Tennis in 1981, which continues today under Billie Jean King's direction. He was a consultant to the Association of Professional Triathletes and President and Commissioner of Roller Hockey International, which brought roller hockey to 37 markets in North America. But can he do it now for the game of bridge? Isn't this the game that grandma plays?

In all of the endeavors just mentioned, says King, I built a significant structure from something that was a great deal less saleable than bridge...and a great deal less fun. Come to my tournament in Cherry Hill and see for yourself.

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I believe that there has never been a better time for a rebirth in interest in bridge, says ex-tennis promoter Larry King (former husband of tennis great Billie Jean King). Every day for the next 15 years, 10,000 baby boomers turn 50 years old. They are the richest 50 year-olds in our history. They are turning to quality of life issues. How many can take up gardening and dog shows? Playing bridge is stimulating, gets them out in their community and lengthens their lives. So many of us had parents or grand parents who enjoyed bridge, so why won't we? Properly packaged, bridge is a perfect life style and quality-of-life activity for baby boomers to take up.

The game of bridge is about to make a dramatic comeback, thanks to King, who did something similar for women's tennis back in the late 1960's and 70's.

From 1968 to 1970, Virginia Slims was 75th on the list of cigarette sales. In 1970, when they decided to take a chance and sponsor the first Women's Tennis Tournament in Houston, Rosie Casals won $7,500 prize money, beating my wife, Billie Jean. In a very short time, they were in the top ten in sales. More important for tennis, people started talking about the game, buying rackets, taking lessons, joining clubs - not because they had any idea of what benefits tennis could offer, but because they read or heard on TV that a woman won $7,500 beating another woman at the game. 'You've come a long way, baby' was suddenly a truism. And with it a whole generation took up tennis. Now the same can be done for bridge, but only bigger, because bridge has it all over tennis!

On June 24, Larry King is taking his message to the Clarion Hotel in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, where his new Prize Money Bridge tour will make a historic stop for the first time in the Philadelphia area. The last great promoter of bridge was Charles H. Goren, who was born in Philadelphia. When Goren was attending McGill University a girlfriend laughed at his ineptness at the game of bridge, after which he vowed never to be made fun of again. He began to study the game, reading every book available on bidding and playing strategies. At that time, Ely Culbertson had made a fortune as a bridge promoter, and Goren soon abandoned his law career to play bridge tournaments. Goren developed a new idea about bidding: The Point Count System.

Soon afterwards, the name of Goren became synonymous with bridge to millions of Americans. His importance as a major figure was recognized by the media, and he appeared on the front cover of Time magazine, on Sept 29, 1958.

Unlike Charles Goren, Larry King is not a great player or theorist. I just love to play, says King, with a boyish smile. Just as King was but an average tennis player, he is an average bridge player. Nevertheless, his great enthusiasm for the game is infectious. King has not only taken his prize-money bridge tour to 24 cities this year, joining major North American amateur tournaments, but he grabs every spare moment he can to play as well. It's hard to keep up with him as he dashes off for one of the four sessions of bridge he plays daily (each session lasts three hours) for 10 days straight at National bridge tournaments, run by the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL). These ACBL tournaments are not for prize money, and there lies the difference.