''Cleveland Hustles'' is an hour-long American reality TV series created by

LeBron James LeBron Raymone James Sr. (; born December 30, 1984) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "King James", he is widely considered one of the greatest p ...

and

Maverick Carter Maverick Carter is an American sports-marketing businessman and media personality. Early life and education Maverick Carter was born on October 10, 1980 Carter spent most of his youth in Akron, Ohio and Atlanta, Georgia. Carter grew up the son ...

, which aired for an 8-episode season between August 24 and October 12, 2016, on

CNBC CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...

. In it, aspiring entrepreneurs competed to open one of four physical stores in the Gordon Square Arts District under the mentorship of a Cleveland investor.

About

The show was produced by SpringHill Entertainment and Magical Elves, with

and

as executive producers. It was hosted by Bonin Bough, with Kumar Arora, Alan Glazen, Kathy Futey, and Jonathan Sawyer as its panel of investors, and LeBron James making several cameos. The show was based in the Gordon Square Arts District, a commercial hub in Cleveland's Detroit-Shoreway neighbourhood near

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...

. Cleveland had been second on the Distressed Community Index, and fourth on the list of dying cities. CNBC announced that it would "help a neighborhood that desperately needs investment", and may have assisted Gordon Square's revitalization. One business owner, however, suggested that "To create good TV, you have to create a villain. That villain was vacancies", and investor Sawyer confirmed that "the neighborhood was going to be there with or without the show... It was going in that direction, is going in that direction and buildings are still affordable". In each of the first four episodes, two businesses presented competing pitches and ran a

pop-up shop Pop-up retail, also known as pop-up store (pop-up shop in the UK, Australia and Ireland) or flash retailing, is a trend of opening short-term sales spaces that last for days to weeks before closing down, often to catch onto a fad or scheduled e ...

, with one of the businesses being selected for mentoring and financing. The remaining four episodes focussed on stages in the setup and opening of the selected stores.

Cast

Bonin Bough: former executive VP for PR firms Weber Shandwick and

Ruder Finn Ruder Finn is a public relations firm with headquarters in the United States and China. It is a large privately owned communications agency, serving corporations, governments, and non-profits. It also has offices in San Francisco, London, Washin ...

who then joined PepsiCo in 2008. Serving as its senior global director for digital and social media, his work resulted in ''

Fast Company ''Fast Company'' is a monthly American business magazine published in print and online that focuses on technology, business, and design. It publishes six print issues per year. History ''Fast Company'' was launched in November 1995 by Alan Web ...

'' naming him one of its "100 Most Creative People In Business" in 2011. Between 2012 and 2016, he worked for multinational food company

Mondelez International Mondelez International, Inc. ( ), often styled Mondelēz, is an American multinational confectionery, food, holding and beverage and snack food company based in Chicago. Mondelez has an annual revenue of about $26 billion and operates in ...

, where he became its chief media and e-commerce officer. Kumar Arora: CEO of investment firm Aroridex, founder of designer sunglasses company Rogue Eyewear, and investor in iLTHY, a streetwear apparel company. Kathy Futey: A wealth management advisor who previously worked at

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

. She serves on the board of the

Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

(MOCA) and the Cuyahoga Valley Chamber of Commerce. Alan Glazen: A neighborhood developer, and retired advertising executive. He co-founded the

Cleveland International Film Festival The Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) is an annual film festival based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is the largest film festival in Ohio. It was first held in 1977, showing eight films over a period of eight weeks at the Cedar Lee Theatre. ...

, and was once mayor of the village of Bentleyville, Ohio Jonathon Sawyer: Chef and owner of three Cleveland restaurants, including the Greenhouse Tavern for which he won a

James Beard Foundation Award The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists in the United States. They are scheduled around James Beard's May 5 birthday. The media award ...

in 2015 as ''Best Chef: Great Lakes''. He was a finalist on the

Food Network Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Group ( ...

's 2016 Chopped Grill Masters series.

Episodes

References

{{CNBC primetime programming 2016 American television series debuts 2010s American reality television series CNBC original programming Television shows set in Cleveland 2016 American television series endings