Cam Newton and Emmanuel Acho are both running successful podcasts today after their NFL careers. Both also happen to have lost their jobs with TV Networks. And now, both figures are having a war of words.

Newton pushed back after Acho claimed his show, Speakeasy, was “better produced” than Shannon Sharpe’s Nightcap. Newton insisted it was his show, 4th&1, that earned the crown for the most organically built audience.

“If we’re talking about organic, if anybody done did it organically, I am he,” Newton said. “I’m the daddy of that baby pile.”

Acho fired back on Speakeasy, saying, “If anybody in the world should be okay with store-bought, it should be you. … You the one that said you went to strip clubs to compete with other men.”

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For context, Newton admitted to doing the above to compete with the amount of money other men spent at these clubs. But Acho

Coming back to the core debate, Newton also addressed how SpeakEasy began. Acho began the show in 2025, after being fired by FOX. While with the network, he was part of Speak, a show that ran from 2016 to 2025.

Today’s Speakeasy’s subscriber count stands at 2.61 million. Acho claims he inherited the YouTube channel as part of his settlement deal with FOX, as the channel would have lain “dormant” otherwise (the page details show it began on August 14, 2016). Acho also gave a shoutout to Sharpe and Skip Bayless, with whom he used to host Undisputed, helping build the channel.

But if the audience stayed, in Acho’s mind, it is proof the growth is real.

“Of those 2.61 million that we inherited, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, could have dipped. But the fact remains, we still got 2.61 million subscribers,” Acho said.

Newton, however, started his podcast in 2023, which now has more than 557,000 subscribers. He also worked for ESPN from 2024 till this year, when he was fired as part of the network’s layoffs. Newton had been running both side by side for these past years.

After being let go by ESPN, along with figures like Ryan Clark, Newton addressed what lay ahead for them. Clark had also been running a successful podcast (The Pivot) in tandem with his ESPN gig. Newton regarded their popularity on the digital front as their strength in this time.

“It’s unfortunate what happened to Ryan Clark. But what I will tell you is this. Ryan Clark is going to be okay. The Pivot ain’t going nowhere. It’s unfortunate what happened to me, some would think, but I’m good. 4th&1 ain’t going nowhere. Funky Friday ain’t going nowhere.

“Own your own. … Get you your own platform because it’ll be hard to remove you from that.”

On that front, Newton is right. Today, there’s no denying he and Acho are two very popular figures in football media.