“Good Seats Still Available” is a curious little podcast devoted to the exploration of what used-to-be in professional sports. Each week, host Tim Hanlon interviews former players, owners, broadcasters, beat reporters, and surprisingly famous "super fans" of teams and leagues that have come and gone - in an attempt to unearth some of the most wild and woolly moments in (often forgotten) sports history.
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episode 325: Pro Tennis' Polychromatic 1970s - With Joel Drucker
Veteran Tennis.com writer, Racquet Magazine columnist & "Three - A Tennis Show" podcast host Joel Drucker ("Jimmy Connors Saved My Life") stops by to drop some serious knowledge on how the decade of the 1970s transformed the sport of professional tennis into the global juggernaut it is today - including pivotal turning points such as:
- The groundbreaking World Championship Tennis (WCT) and Virginia Slims Circuit tours that brought standardized scheduling, big-time media exposure and unprecedented prize money to both the men's and women's pro games for the first time'
- 1973's paradigm-shifting intergender "Battle of the Sexes" competition between inveterate hustler Bobby Riggs and female icon Billie Jean King - an international spectacle whose result both transcended tennis and changed the face of American sports; and
- World Team Tennis - the innovative, ahead-of-its-time rethink of how the pro game could be played - featuring city-domiciled, co-ed, team-oriented match play on colorful playing surfaces in front of raucous crowds in major indoor arenas from coast to coast.
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- 417 Helmets (promo code: GOODSEATS): https://417helmets.com/?wpam_id=3
- Jimmy Connors Saved My Life: A Personal Biography (2004): https://amzn.to/46cdPQQ
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