6/14/19

(ESN Campus, WA) The Eli Sports Network is excited to announce our new partnership with the highly popular Mitch Unfiltered sports talk podcast hosted by longtime KJR Morning man Mitch Levy. Mitch Levy had been at the controls of the longest running sports talk morning show in Seattle for 23 years. Mitch and KJR parted ways a little more than a year ago when Levy had some legal issues to deal with due to some poor choices. Levy has now returned to doing what he does best, talk sports with his new twice a week podcast called Mitch Unfiltered.

Mitch sat down with ESN and we talked for nearly 2 hours at a Starbucks in Bellevue recently. I was somewhat taken by surprise that he would agree to meet with me over an idea I had of co-mingling our products together in various ways. Mitch walked in and was so open and honest and had been through quite a 13-month period. I am not going to detail what happened and all the things we discussed about the past year and half because Mitch does it in his very first podcast. Mitch doesn’t hold anything back and lays it all out there explaining what happened, why it happened and how he and his family have dealt and continue to deal with it.

We will say the legal issue Mitch was caught up in is not even close to the crime of the century and is frankly a choice between 2 adults. The choice in this case was a very bad choice and it cost Mitch a 24-year career with KJR radio who decided they needed to cut ties. Talking with Mitch he has zero animosity toward the KJR brass and totally understands his issue, his choice is what cost him his job at KJR.

Mitch and I were talking about how you can take responsibility for your actions and explain how you got to be in such a position to make a poor choice without making it sound like an excuse. I will simply say that Mitch said over and over it was all his fault. But I pressed a little as to how he got in that head space to make a bad choice, not to try to excuse him, that is not up to me, but to explain how people, on every single day of life, may find themselves in a position that allowed or encouraged them to make bad choices. To me it was an experience listening to him explain what led up to and why it happened and I could see how easily I could put myself in a bad position to make a poor choice. To me it is important to acknowledge what happened and how he responded to that situation and he again explains everything in his first podcast.

Some may ask why we would associate with Mitch after this issue and that is easy for us to answer. We run a sports web site and yes a big part of what we cover is High School and yes we are careful to what we want to associate our high school coverage with and in this case it is about redemption. It is about understanding that humans of all ages and experiences can find themselves in a situation they can not imagine they could be in and feel their life is crumbling all around them. In Mitch’s case he was fired, his wife and kids could have left him, his friends could have abandoned him and he could have seen the whole life he worked for in nearly 30 years of a radio career all collapse in one fell swoop.

But instead he immediately took responsibility, his wife and kids stood by him, he got into counseling and later he found out friends, sponsors and most of all a huge audience of former morning show listeners stuck with him too. This all happening while in a bright public spotlight with plenty of folks who did not like him and were happy to see him fall from grace. This is a lesson that is needed to be taught to our kids not hidden from them.

Kids these days need to know life is hard, Mom and Dad will not always be there to cushion the fall no matter how old you are and sometimes you have to stand up and take your medicine. You also have to understand that there will be some if not many who will reject your apology, reject your redemption which is another extremely important lesson that not only kids need to learn but us adults have to be reminded of and that is you are never going to measure up to everyone’s standards, not everyone will forgive or like you. But you must go on and continue to do what is right and earn your redemption on a daily basis. It is so important to understand no one should hold you to a higher standard than yourself and if you are truly meeting your own expectations there is not anything else you can do but keep living your standard and not simply talk about it.

So why Mitch Levy and Eli Sports? Haha, if Mitch is willing to talk about us every now and then when we have important games on or when we gear up for the play-offs and expose our High School athletes to his already massive audience while also teaching a valuable lesson but literally living it then this is a no-brainer from the word go.

Mitch decided to try the podcast world after several former sponsors and friends urged him to get back in the saddle and get back to doing what he was born to do, talk and entertain. Mitch usually will have a co-host and Jason Hamilton is his regular side-kick. The show is generally around 90-minutes and there are 2 episodes a week. One comes out on Monday and the other is a special podcast only available to patrons of Mitch Unfiltered which is a subscription cost of $5 a month. As a patron there are other special offers as well such as immediate takes on big sporting events happening over the weekend.

Eli’s Vice President of Communications Will Gaethle says it has always been our intent to grow the ESN brand and to expand our coverage base. High school sports will always be a top priority but we already cover other sports such as Minor league soccer, Junior College sports and Emerald Downs to name a few. Aligning with Mitch Unfiltered gives us a link to coverage we are not currently providing. Our large audience of more than 1.4-million viewers last year also like to talk NFL, NBA, the Seahawks, Mariners and other major sports and there is no one better than Mitch Levy.

We invite our users to click on the Mitch Unfiltered link on the Eli Sports Network home web page and listen to simply the best interviewer in sports certainly on the air in this area if not the entire country. Being a sports web site Gaethle said we’re all about redemption and comebacks.

So with that we hope if you were a fan of Mitch or never heard of him before to give him a try. It’s free and you just might find yourself a new way to catch up on the sports that interest you in a new way. Welcome to our new friend and supporter Mitch Levy with the Mitch Unfilitered Sports Talk podcast.