Bille Jean King

Initiatives

IBIS Initiatives - Billie Jean King Foundation Case Study Series on Gender Equity in Sports

Bille Jean King Foundation Case Study Series

About the Partnership

Billie Jean KingDarden has partnered with the Billie Jean King Foundation (formerly the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative) to produce a series of case studies highlighting stories of women leaders and gender issues in sports. The partnership’s first case is an overview of tennis legend Billie Jean King’s success on the court as well as her ground-breaking leadership, business, and activism. Additional case topics include the WNBA, outfit issues in sports (specifically the Norwegian Beach Handball team’s refusal to wear what they considered sexist uniforms), bystander intervention and USA Gymnastics, and Nike’s struggle to attract and retain female athletes. All are available from Darden Business Publishing and are being used in a variety of Darden courses to demonstrate the leadership insights from the business of sports, and the leadership competencies that elite athletics provides. Future cases will include topics such as Name/Image/Likeness, mental health issues in sports, access and membership at exclusive organizations, and the challenges facing many professional women’s teams, such as the National Women’s Soccer League. The series is intended to spark classroom conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion in business through the lens of sports and to present multi-faceted issues from which MBA students can draw larger conclusions about the world of business and beyond.

For more information about Billie Jean King and the Billie Jean King Foundation, visit: https://billiejeankingfoundation.org

BJKF logo

To read more about the partnership, see the Darden press release and the Poets & Quants article.

For more information, contact Jenny Mead

Billie Jean King Foundation Cases in the Darden Case Collection