Billie Jean King Hits The Net First it was Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and John Elway. Now it's Billie Jean King. Tennis legend King said Tuesday she'll contribute to and act as the official spokesperson for a new sports Web site for women, the latest retired sports star to endorse a dot-com start up. Called Pupule Sports, the Redwood City, Calif.-based company launched recently with news and chat on college and professional women's sports, as well as plans to sell women's athletic footwear, apparel and other gear later this spring. Pupule, which means "crazy" in Hawaiian, is the latest in a number of sports sites for women to open in the past year. Lucy.com, an early leader in the niche, last month raised $28 million in venture funds and sealed a distribution deal with America Online, and has its own celebrity athlete endorser, Olympic medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee. A handful of established direct-mail catalogs for women athletes, including Athleta, Title 9 Sports and The Female Athlete, also have launched Web stores in the past 12 months. The emergence of women's sites is part of a larger push to bring more of the $77 billion sporting goods industry online. In December, retired super stars Jordan, Elway and Gretzky revealed plans for a general-interest online sports retail site called MVP.com, which launched last week. MVP.com said it will spend $50 million over the next 12 months to promote its site, including TV ads featuring its famous backers. Pupule Sports - not to be confused with Pupule, a company that sells Hawaiian shirts online - was created by CEO Laura Jarrell, a former specialty sporting goods store owner, and Chris Shipley, editor and publisher of Demo Letter and executive producer of the Demo Internet industry conferences. Shipley will continue to divide her time between Pupule Sports, where she is chairman, and Demo, a company representative says. Pupule Sports' directors include William Krause, former CEO of 3Com, and Kathy Levinson, president of E-Trade. King, a longtime champion of women's rights in sports, says sporting goods manufacturers are finally making gear suited for women, a big change from bygone days and one she supports. She also admitted to not using the Net before hooking up with the new company, but she's learning. "I'm trying to use it every day," she says. "I love the Net. It's gender-blind, it's color-blind. It really does level the playing field for everybody."