‘Air’ and the Argument for Letting the Talent Share in the Profits

“To allow me to get to Eddie O’Bannon — it never would have happened without me being with Michael Jordan,” Vaccaro said.

Jay Bilas, an ESPN college basketball commentator, perceives a connection between Jordan’s securing a cut of his Nike business and Vaccaro’s lobbying to get college athletes more of the profits they help generate.

“It’s the same analysis,” said Bilas, who played basketball for Duke University when Jordan was on the archrival University of North Carolina Tar Heels. “Whether it’s an hourly worker negotiating with McDonald’s or doctors and nurses negotiating with a hospital system, what’s always true is that the business is going to make substantially more than the worker. Everyone in America, in a free-market system, deserves the right to negotiate for their fair value.”

At the film premiere last month, Damon said, the audience “erupted into applause” at the end when onscreen text described Vaccaro’s involvement in the O’Bannon case.

“It was thematically right for the movie, but it was also perfect for Sonny,” Damon said.

“The obvious thing he would go do was go fight for them,” Damon added. “It’s in keeping with how you see him throughout the movie, genuinely caring — it’s not just business for him. This is his passion and it’s his love. There’s a morality that grounds it.”

Damon is engaged in a similar enterprise. He and Affleck substituted filmmakers for athletes into Vaccaro’s equation, and, backed by $100 million from a private investment firm, started Artists Equity last year to restore to filmmakers a share of projects’ profits that had disappeared as Hollywood moved toward streaming and studios scaled back on the most generous deals.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/movies/air-movie-sonny-vaccaro-matt-damon.html