When Dodgers and Lakers owner Mark Walter offered Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss the chance to buy a stake in the WNBA’s Sparks, the tennis legend didn’t hesitate to push for more.

“Why not the Dodgers?” King asked, according to Kloss, who is CEO of Billie Jean King Enterprises (and also King’s wife).

“I almost fell off my chair,” Kloss told Front Office Sports in a recent episode of Portfolio Players.

King and Kloss have been trailblazers in the growth of women’s sports. King won 39 Grand Slam titles across singles and doubles tournaments, and her 1973 defeat of former men’s No. 1 Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” came just a year after Title IX mandated equal funding for women’s and men’s athletics in schools. Kloss won two doubles Grand Slam titles and achieved a world No. 1 ranking in doubles, and also got as high as No. 19 in singles. 

King and Kloss were so instrumental in co-founding the Professional Women’s Hockey League that the PWHL MVP trophy is named for King and the Playoff MVP trophy is named for Kloss.

But King is adamant that female athletes and investors should not be put in a box.

“Billie goes crazy because she’s like, ‘Why would I want half the market?’” Kloss said. “She’s always thought that. Everyone should be able to get a piece of the entire market.”