Money Court season 1, episode 2 preview: Ownership debacles

The latest CNBC original series Money Court has already hooked audiences with Kevin O’Leary’s no-nonsense approach to settling business disputes, and in this week’s episode “Clash of the Co-Owners,” he deals with one of the oldest problems in the book: people all wanting to be in charge.

The first case involves a chain of medical spas at a crossroads because the two owners can’t decide which way to take their business. One wants to emphasize their franchise and focus on other entrepreneurs, while the other is convinced that there’s better money by putting that attention into the corporate stores they own. Further making things complicated is they’ve only been franchising for two years. So are they putting the cart ahead of the horse?

Staying in the lifestyle space, the second case is a battle over a new beauty product. An investor wants to put her name on the patent for a product that she didn’t invent—pragmatic for her, but ruffling the feathers of the business partners who actually did put the project together. However, if they don’t get a financial investment, they may not be able to bring their product to market. So do they strike a deal that could hurt them in the long term in order to get their company off the ground in the short term?

Money Court is Judge Judy for the Mad Money crowd, and it continues to do a good job of picking cases that aren’t what TV audiences would see on daytime court shows. The key to its success is finding stories that fit within the CNBC brand and so far it’s spot on. Kevin continues to chew the scenery as well as he ever does, with assistance from “advisors” Ada Pozo and Katie Phang.

With some of these cases having so many different outcomes, it might be interesting if Money Court instituted a viewer vote option, either during or after the episode. Fans could get on CNBC’s website and vote, so audiences could see if they agree or disagree with Kevin’s verdict. Perhaps they could even submit questions and Kevin may be able to answer them, further explaining why he came up with a particular solution.

That, of course, would require more screen time (similar to the updates on Shark Tank), so it might be best as an online exclusive or at the end of episodes. But with installments like “Clash of the Co-Owners,” Money Court is showing that it’s ripe for some kind of audience engagement.

Viewers can watch the first five minutes of this Money Court episode below, courtesy of CNBC, before tuning in to see how all three cases unfold.

Money Court airs Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on CNBC.

Article content is (c)2020-2023 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram.