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Emmanuel Acho has been fired once by traditional television. He\u2019d like to keep it that way.<\/p>\n
Eight months after launching Speakeasy<\/em>, Acho told Barrett Media\u2019s John Mamola<\/a> that the show is running ahead of every benchmark he set before it debuted, so far ahead that he\u2019s stopped setting numerical goals because the show keeps clearing them. The natural follow-up to success in most sports media careers would be a network coming in with a deal. Acho isn\u2019t waiting for one. He isn\u2019t particularly interested in one. He watched FS1 burn through its own lineup for five years before he became part of the wreckage, and the lesson he took from it was not to go find another network to do it again.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not going to be controlled by the man again,\u201d he told Barrett. \u201cI\u2019m not about to be fired again. Just because you\u2019re in a position doesn\u2019t mean you know what you\u2019re doing. What network executive would have been able to ideate Speakeasy<\/em>? Then line up talent, build out the studios, and choose the timeslot for Speakeasy<\/em>. I did that in 54 days.\u201d<\/p>\n Those 54 days came after FS1 canceled The Facility<\/em> last summer as part of a sweeping lineup overhaul<\/a> that took out three shows at once. Acho had replaced Jason Whitlock<\/a> on Speak For Yourself<\/em> in 2020, spent two years building that show alongside LeSean McCoy and Joy Taylor, got shuffled to The Facility<\/em> as part of FS1\u2019s post-Skip Bayless reshuffling<\/a>, and then got cut when Fox canceled The Facility<\/em>, Breakfast Ball<\/em>, and the revamped Speak all in one swoop.<\/p>\n He took McCoy with him, added T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Kieran Hickey-Semple, and built Speakeasy<\/em> from scratch before the 2025 NFL season started.<\/p>\n The show airs five nights a week, starting at 11:15 p.m. ET on YouTube, and its identity was established in the first week of the NFL season when Acho and McCoy landed live postgame locker room interviews<\/a> with Aaron Jones, Lane Johnson, and Dion Dawkins immediately after primetime games. The Jones clip \u2014 in which Jones described J.J. McCarthy running into the huddle while the Vikings were still trailing and asking his teammates, \u201cIs there any place else you guys would rather be?\u201d \u2014 went viral overnight and was mentioned on The Pat McAfee Show<\/em> the following morning.<\/p>\n Vikings running back, Aaron Jones, jumped straight into the SPEAKEASY from the locker room for the exclusive interview!<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a moment when we were still down, J.J. McCarthy runs in the huddle and looks at us and says, \u2018is there anywhere else you\u2019d rather be.\u2019\u201d -Aaron Jones pic.twitter.com\/O70nCKZvSF<\/a><\/p>\n\n