Money

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are starting their own production company that promises to put creatives first -- both in terms of less corporate red tape ... and more money long-term.

The two Hollywood titans -- who have three Oscars between the both of them, and who've starred in, written and directed countless hit films over the years -- announced Sunday they were launching something called Artists' Equity ... which speaks exactly to their goal here.

The idea behind this new enterprise is to host and cater to premier peeps in the film and TV industry -- but instead of paying 'em bank up front, the way a big studio/streamer might these days on talent-for-hire, BA and MD are taking it old-school ... with a cut of the profits.

Back in the day, pre-streaming, that was the playbook in showbiz. Actors and directors and other folks attached to a flick would often be contractually entitled to cash after the fact based on how well something did at the box office. If a movie crushed over time, it could mean more moolah than a one-time payout -- high as it may seem at first -- which is SOP now.

Ben and Matt wanna bring that back, with BA explaining to the NYT ... "As streamers have proliferated, they have really ended back-end participation, and so this is partly an effort to try to recapture some of that value and share it in a way that’s more equitable." He went on to add, "Not just writers and directors and stars. But also cinematographers, editors, costume designers and other crucial artists who, in my view, are very underpaid."

Artists' Equity also aims to do what big studios can't ... getting out of the way, and letting creatives have actual ownership/control of their vision without all the politics that tend to hinder production, sometimes for the worst. At AE, Ben and Matt are adopting laissez-faire.

It's a neat idea ... and it's not just a pipe dream either. Matt and Ben have secured at least $100 million in initial financing from RedBird Capital Partners -- plus an undisclosed amount of dough from their own pockets. Ben says he's going to lend his services exclusively to Artists' Equity going forward. Matt's committed to a handful of films as well.

Flavor Flav's beef with Spirit Airlines is making him a hot commodity with a rival carrier -- Southwest Airlines has entered the chat and it comes bearing valuable gifts.

Sources close to the rap icon/reality TV star tell TMZ ... Flav and his camp were contacted by a Southwest honcho after they got wind of his Las Vegas airport rant after missing a Spirit flight.

We're told the exec is a friend of someone on Flav's team, and made him an offer you'd think he simply can't refuse -- flying for free with Southwest whenever he wants.

TMZ broke the story ... the Public Enemy rapper lost his cool, when he was denied entry to his Spirit flight. He claimed the agent shut the door in his face, setting off a heated back and forth.

Spirit investigated the incident and decided the customer was right -- the airline refunded FF and upgraded him to "Gold", its highest frequent flier tier.

Now that the dust has settled, Flav's got options! A rep tells us he's getting an outpouring of love from flight attendants with several airlines -- including Delta and American. Southwest even sweetened the pot, throwing in a buddy pass to go with his free ride.

Flav has a good history with Southwest -- he played honorary flight attendant during a past flight into Vegas -- so, maybe the airline is in the driver's seat for his business.

If Jay-Z can pull off a deal for the Commanders, Shannon Sharpe tells TMZ Sports it'd be HUGE for the NFL.

The Hall of Fame tight end broke it down for us at LAX earlier this month ... explaining having a guy like Hov in the Washington owner's box would do wonders for the league.

"It's a good look," Sharpe said. "It shows we're trying to diversify and we're trying to expand. And we're trying to do the right things."

It's unclear if Jay has formally put in an offer to Daniel Sndyer for the team -- but we do know he is interested in eventually submitting one with Jeff Bezos ... if the two haven't already.

The titans had a secret dinner in Los Angeles on Nov. 7 to discuss it all ... and it seems if Snyder is truly willing to part ways with the org., the duo wants it.

Sharpe told us he thinks it'd all be "great" -- adding that he hopes D.C. native Kevin Durant somehow finds a way to get involved too.

Ticketmaster is spelling out what went wrong with their Taylor Swift tour sales -- and the justification for the fiasco was basically chalked up to ... a necessary evil to defeat bots.

The Live Nation company posted an explainer Friday night, giving an in-depth breakdown of why so many people had such a hard time buying tickets to TS's 'Eras Tour' during the presale window this week ... and it consisted of both an apology and a defense of the chaos.

For starters, Ticketmaster acknowledges what TayTay said ... that she was told they were anticipating an unprecedented amount of traffic and were prepared. However, TM adds that despite this ... when the digital doors actually opened, their expectations were exceeded.

Ticketmaster posted a graph that shows just how many people (and not-real-people) flooded their site ... even though they had a rigorous registration system in place to make sure real, authenticated fans were able to buy tickets, as opposed to spammers who would otherwise snap them up in bulk and hawk them on the resale market with massive markups.

Regardless of this seemingly airtight system being in place -- consisting of 3.5 million users successfully preregistering/confirming their IDs -- Ticketmaster says that on the day of the sale, even more unregistered fans and bots came flocking in ... partially crashing the site.

To resolve this record amount of traffic while simultaneously taking care of the folks who should've been guaranteed a chance to buy passes ... Ticketmaster says it started staggering queues, the result of which ended with longer wait times and, inevitably, frustrated users.

Ticketmaster says they know this caused confusion -- and in some cases, people to lose their spots outright -- but insists it was the best option under the circumstances. TM also proudly touts the fact 2.4 million tickets were, in fact, ultimately sold to authenticated fans ... and that less than 5% of the tickets sold ended up for resale, a W in the site's book.

Ticketmaster says it regrets the fact some were left empty-handed, but also adds this perspective ... it's unfeasible to please everyone, especially at this level of interest.

TM says, "[B]ased on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing) … that’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years. While it’s impossible for everyone to get tickets to these shows, we know we can do more to improve ... and that’s what we’re focused on."

Shaggy is heading to the Grammys again thanks to his "Com Fly Wid Mi" album, but musical accolades aren't the only thing fueling his drive ... he's very much about giving back, these days.

We caught the reggae icon at LAX, and this time he couldn't deny it -- it absolutely was him recently speaking to inmates at Michigan's Genesee County Jail.

Shaggy was the guest speaker for the graduation of IGNITE ... which stands for Inmate Growth Naturally and Intentionally Through Education.

Through the program, inmates are given tools to successfully reenter society -- as Shaggy explained to us, ex-cons typically have a hard time adjusting to life on the outside.

Shaggy says he works with a company called Colour Bank that offers inmates financial literacy courses -- and credit cards to use with the education they've earned!!!

With over 4 decades in showbiz and a new Best Reggae Album nom, Shaggy wants to leverage his success to help anyone in need going forward ... and he left us with some wisdom he learned from the late Notorious B.I.G.

Quoting Biggie's final interview, Shaggy reacted to the string of violence in the music community as of late, saying artists should become responsible for the content they make once they hit it big ... especially because they're able to influence so many.

Post Malone is celebrating a new addition to his already impressive jewelry collection -- a blinding 23 carats worth of diamonds, and all that bling is just for the littlest finger of them all.

Guess his hand was feeling a little light, because sources close to Post tell TMZ ... he called up his pals at Angel City Jewelers to hook him up with a new piece for his pinky.

Angel City's owner, Isaac Bokhoor, came through with the goods while PM was making a recent tour stop in Las Vegas ... and unveiled the "Rockstar" sized ring ... which we're told set the singer back about half a million bucks!

For that kinda dough, ya better love it ... and Post clearly does. Check out his reaction right after getting it backstage -- you're looking at a 5-carat Emerald cut center stone, with another 5 carats of round diamonds on the side. There are 13 more 1-carat stones around the band.

Of course, the "White Iverson" is no stranger to getting blinged out by Isaac and co. -- remember, he was the master behind Post's $250k Dallas Cowboys chain.

He got it back in 2019, appropriately while he was in Dallas at AT&T Stadium. That one came with 3,000 stones, 9.7 carats of baguettes, 13.5 carats of sapphires and 8.7 carats of diamonds.

Erika Jayne's diamond earrings -- bought by her estranged husband, Tom Girardi -- are now on the auction block ... but we're told the estimated value for the jewelry is WAY lower than the 'Real Housewives' star thought.

TMZ has learned ... Erika's earrings have been valued at auction somewhere between $250K to $350K -- obviously way under her purchase price of $750K.

Fans of the show know Tom gave her the earrings as a gift, with money he allegedly stole from his clients over the years ... but despite taking heat over the bling, Erika defended herself time and time again about why she's entitled to keep them.

She even told her costars she wouldn't part with them unless a judge ordered her to do so -- which is exactly what went down. FYI ... John Moran Auctioneers already had a big event, auctioning off tons of items from the Girardi estate ... but this piece of jewelry is set to be sold as part of a separate event next month.

Banksy is going to war with Guess -- accusing the clothing brand of stealing his work -- and now encouraging folks to steal from the retailer's London store.

The famous graffiti artist just put out a call to all shoplifters, encouraging them to visit the Guess retailer on Regent Street in London.

Banksy posted an image of the Guess storefront, and it looks like the retailer has his Flower Thrower graffiti displayed along with clothes bearing some of his famous works.

In his post, Banksy rips into Guess, saying ... "They've helped themselves to my artwork without asking, how can it be wrong for you to do the same to their clothes?"

Guess recently started selling a new collection and the clothing line ads brag about items "with graffiti by Banksy." Guess says the collection is a collab with Brandalised, which Guess describes as "an urban graffiti license whose mission is to offer Banksy fans affordable graffiti collectibles."

The Justice Department could get to the bottom of the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco ... because the feds are reportedly already investigating the parent company of Ticketmaster for possible antitrust violations.

The department is taking a close look at Live Nation Entertainment, according to the New York Times ... trying to see if the company's abusing its massive market power to screw millions of music fans over.

While the Swift madness certainly adds to the drama, it seems like the investigation has already been going on for months -- with NYT's sources saying the department's antitrust division has already been contacting venues in the industry about Live Nation's past practices and the overall dynamics of the ticket industry.

As you know, all hell broke loose as fans flocked to Ticketmaster to try and get their hands on a ticket to "The Eras Tour" this week during the presale.

The company even canceled the public sale on Friday, which is ordinarily how it sells any remaining tickets after presales -- and now the resale market is seeing sky-high prices.

NBA YoungBoy is targeting his former artist NoCap over a money dispute, and neither one is showing signs of backing down.

YoungBoy recently resurfaced on Instagram ... to throw subliminals at Kodak Black and, apparently, to very openly shade NoCap.

In an IG story, Youngboy accuses him of throwing undercover disses behind closed doors, and said they no longer collaborate because the respect is gone!!! Well, that's the cleaned-up version ... but you get the idea.

NBA also claims NoCap owes him money ... which was further explained through NoCap's fiery response.

According to him, NBA tried to charge him for their last collaboration, "Flags to the Sky," which appeared on the Alabama rapper's "Mr. Crawford" album.

"Mr. Crawford" was released through Atlantic Records and NBA's Never Broke Again imprint ... and NoCap can't believe his own label boss would try to tax his pockets.

NoCap alluded to the Kodak cheap shots while claiming he never badmouthed NBA, but also says he's never been supported in his 3 years signed to the label.

Taylor Swift is sorry for her fans who feel they were screwed by Ticketmaster in trying to score tickets for her tour ... blasting the company for failing to deliver on its promise for a smooth rollout.

The singer just broke her silence on the concert ticket disaster, with a lengthy statement on her Instagram Story where she's royally pissed at Ticketmaster ... echoing the same feelings from her legions of fans.

Taylor says she's extremely protective of her fans and adds, "It's really difficult for me to trust an outside entity with these relationships and loyalties, and excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse."

TS also says, "There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward."

She's pretty pissed at Ticketmaster, explaining ... "I'm not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could. It's truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them."

As we reported, there were tons of issues and delays with the Ticketmaster presale, and the ticket giant even canceled the public sale, and now the resale market is seeing sky-high price tags.

Taylor ends with a message to the fans who didn't get lucky enough to score tickets ... saying, "My hope is to provide more opportunities for us to all get together and sing these songs. Thank you for wanting to be there. You have no idea how much that means."

Luka Dončić continues to break records on and off the court ... his 2018 National Treasures Rookie NBA Logoman Patch card, a 1-of-1, just sold for $3.12 million at auction!

The ultra-rare card sold at a PWCC auction Thursday night ... and set a new all-time record for a basketball card sold at a public auction.

The card features an image of the 23-year-old hoops star on the front, along with an actual patch from a jersey he wore during his rookie year and an autograph. The back has a quote from Luka's rookie season ... when he joked he'd retire if he dunked on LeBron James.

"This is the highest price ever realized for a basketball card sold in a verified public auction," said Jesse Craig, Vice President of Sales at PWCC Marketplace.

"When this card went to the block, we purposefully avoided speculation on a price because this was an important moment for the market to decide on the value of Luka's best trading card."

In 2021, this same Luka card reportedly sold at a private sale for $4.6 million, but PWCC's auction was the first chance bidders had to acquire the commodity on the open market.

Speaking of LBJ ... the all-time record for a basketball trading card is $5.2 million -- which a collector paid in a private sale (not at auction) for an Upper Deck Exquisite LeBron James card.

As for Dončić -- he's again having an MVP-caliber season in Dallas, and it's clear Lukamania isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Taylor Swift fans lucky enough to get their hands on presale tickets could cash in for tens of thousands of dollars now -- the resale market is absolutely exploding in the wake of Ticketmaster canceling the public sale.

We've checked out seat maps on StubHub in some of the biggest cities Taylor will hit next year on her Eras tour, and the pricing is insane. Mind you, Taylor's doing multiple shows in each city -- so, the following astronomical costs are PER ticket for Saturday shows (typically the most popular) in each city.

Fans hoping to score tickets for Taylor's SoFi Stadium in L.A. show will fork over a minimum of $400, and that's behind the stage ... while the most expensive seat is currently listed at $4,549.

You can score some nosebleeds for $765 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, or shell out $11,475 for the floor.

However, those prices pale in comparison to the $22,500 you'll pay to see Taylor from the front row at Gillette Stadium in suburban Boston, and the "cheap" seats are $675. There's also Soldier Field in Chicago, where you can sit in the nosebleeds for $800 and land a floor seat for around $5,000.

As we reported, Swifties spiraled this week after Ticketmaster seemingly botched the presale -- causing millions of fans to wait online for several hours to secure seats to Taylor's first tour in years. Turns out they're the lucky ones.

Far more fans got zippo, and will now have to pay through the nose. Honestly, they'll be the ones singing "Look what you made me do" ... to Ticketmaster!!!

Things got so bad, Ticketmaster announced Thursday the general public on-sale, scheduled for Friday, was canceled "due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand."

What's more ... the attorney general in Tennessee announced Wednesday he'll be investigating the ticketing giant for possible antitrust law violations.

Flavor Flav has a few reasons to give Spirit Airlines another shot after flipping out on the air carrier over a missed flight -- he's not only getting his money back, he's getting big-time perks.

A rep for Flavor Flav tells TMZ ... Spirit finished the investigation into FF's angry incident in Las Vegas, and decided to give the rap icon a full refund.

We're also told Spirit is upgrading his frequent flier status to "Gold" ... which is the airline's highest frequent flier tier. That status means Flav will never have to pay for any of the budget airline's add-on charges, like the ones for baggage and seat selection.

TMZ broke the story ... Flav narrowly missed a flight earlier this month in Sin City, and we got video of him flipping out on the gate agent who shut the door in his face.

Flav's camp said he typically waits to board flights after all the other passengers because folks like to take pictures with him and he doesn't want to hold up the boarding process. So, he waited, but the gate agent closed the door, shutting out Flav and 2 others.

FF eventually apologized to all the folks who witnessed his airport rant.

The Swifties are currently raging -- Ticketmaster just canceled the public on-sale for tickets to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour -- just a couple days after a disastrous presale process.

In a statement Thursday, Ticketmaster said, "Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow's public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled."

As you can imagine, Taylor's fans were NOT happy ... one wrote, "They’re saying CANCELLED!!!!! Not postponed. Not rescheduled. CANCELLED. @taylorswift13 better finally address this situation. It’s gone too far."

Another raged, "YOU HAVE BEEN SELLING TICKETS ONLINE FOR YEARS AND ARE A MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY AND YOU’RE TELLING ME YOU STILL CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO RUN A FUNCTIONING WEBSITE AND GET TICKETS INTO THE HANDS OF FANS THERE’S SO MANY WHO STILL DON’T HAVE TICKETS"

So ya, Ticketmaster is rightfully taking a lot of heat right now.

As we reported, fans waited hours and shelled out hundreds -- sometimes thousands -- of dollars to get their hands on tickets. While some were lucky, many others weren't, coming up empty despite having a presale code.

On Wednesday, Tennessee's Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti announced he'd investigate Ticketmaster for antitrust violations.

For their part, Ticketmaster said there was a historically unprecedented demand for the tickets.

Aaron Judge's 62nd home run ball could be yours -- the record-setting baseball is about to hit the auction block -- after the fan who caught the historic piece of memorabilia turned down a whopping $3 million offer!

The ball will soon be on the block at Goldin Auctions ... one of the most prominent online sports sellers in the world.

As we previously reported, Cory Youmans caught the baseball on October 4th ... while he was seated in the outfield for the Yankees vs. Rangers game in Texas. The Yanks tried to convince the fan to give up the ball that night, but the fan refused to part ways with it.

In the weeks since, Youmans -- who's been living it up -- has received increasingly larger offers for the ball ... culminating in a massive $3 million offer.

Clearly, the fan believes he can make even more at auction ... and he's got company.

“The ball has the potential to become the highest-priced baseball ever sold,” Ken Goldin said, adding ... “Three million plus would be my estimate.”

Of course, Judge set the NY Yankees and American League single-season home run record this season ... topping the 61 HR mark set by former A.L. MVP and Yanks star, Roger Maris, in 1961.

If the baseball is to set the record, it'll need to sell for at least $3,005,001 ... in order to surpass the sale price of Mark McGwire's 70th home run (the slugger played in the National League), which he smashed during his historic 1998 season in which he went toe-to-toe with Sammy Sosa.