Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight moving to ESPN

[Ernie]

From the NY Times:

Nate Silver, the statistician who attained national fame for his accurate projections about the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, is parting ways with The New York Times and moving his FiveThirtyEight franchise to ESPN, the sports empire controlled by the Walt Disney Company, according to ESPN employees with direct knowledge of his plans.

Silver has a wide following in the political world for making election predictions with uncanny accuracy. But before that, he was doing baseball sabremetrics and running a bracket for the best burritos in Chicago.

He recently did statistical analysis on why Canada can't win a Stanley Cup.

As a political junkie, I'll mourn the loss of his FiveThirtyEight political blog. As a hockey enthusiast, I'll be looking forward to his renewed focus on the sports world.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

I'm fine with the move. He's an amazing baseball stats guy, so he'll have significantly more time and resources devoted to that aspect of his work over at ESPN, and I'm sure that 538 will live on as a quasi-independent/affiliated with ABC News political stats blog, especially as 2016 approaches.

 

[Brodie]

Silver was always a sports guy first, I'm sure he'll be back at the Old Grey Lady next fall part time

 

[Ernie]

Silver was always a sports guy first, I'm sure he'll be back at the Old Grey Lady next fall part time

The article says he's going to do the election stuff for ABC. That's a pretty big coup for them. He'll bring a ton of traffic to their website and they probably get him exclusively as a TV analyst during election season.

Pretty good for a guy who just likes to play with numbers and rank things.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

The article says he's going to do the election stuff for ABC. That's a pretty big coup for them. He'll bring a ton of traffic to their website and they probably get him exclusively as a TV analyst during election season.

Pretty good for a guy who just likes to play with numbers and rank things.

It'll be a win-win for him. He still gets to do his main passion throughout the baseball year, and then come the ramp up time for the midterms and presidential elections every two years, he's one of the top dogs in election coverage.

 

[Brodie]

Ah... didn't read it on mobile. That's big for ABC. I wonder if he'll have an on-air role beyond the Keith Olbermann show... it'd be quite big if ESPN had an openly gay stats analyst on Baseball Tonight.

 

[Dado]

I find both the NYT and ESPN moves as curious. Silver is a with-it guy, and those are both old-media companies that have started their downward slides.

Surely there must be a better outlet for him...

 

[EvilCoop]

NYT is on the decline, I wouldn't necessarily say that ESPN is. I'm still confused though, because there will be a chance that Olbermann is not successful (though I fully intend to watch it).

 

[superdeluxe]

I find both the NYT and ESPN moves as curious. Silver is a with-it guy, and those are both old-media companies that have started their downward slides.

Surely there must be a better outlet for him...

For Sports, what is a bigger/better outlet than ESPN?

 

[Ugmo]

I'm fine with the move. He's an amazing baseball stats guy, so he'll have significantly more time and resources devoted to that aspect of his work over at ESPN, and I'm sure that 538 will live on as a quasi-independent/affiliated with ABC News political stats blog, especially as 2016 approaches.

Yeah, that blog is massive once the presidential race rolls around. I'm sure he's not going to give that up.

 

[buddahsmoka1]

Pretty good for a guy who just likes to play with numbers and rank things.

Just likes to play with numbers and rank things? He does a lot more than that...

A strong statistician is in demand in virtually every field in the economy.

 

[buddahsmoka1]

Yeah, that blog is massive once the presidential race rolls around. I'm sure he's not going to give that up.

He won't.

 

[Ernie]

Just likes to play with numbers and rank things? He does a lot more than that...

A strong statistician is in demand in virtually every field in the economy.

Behind the scenes, not in a prominent media role like he has. He started FiveThirtyEight just so he could spill some of his election thoughts, after being a regular commenter at DailyKos.com.

 

[Ugmo]

Behind the scenes, not in a prominent media role like he has. He started FiveThirtyEight just so he could spill some of his election thoughts, after being a regular commenter at DailyKos.com.

Yeah? I didn't know that. No wonder conservatives detest him.

 

[Tawnos]

I'm sure he'll still do election cycle stuff, but I really don't blame the guy. The flak he'll get will be just as passionate (sports fans), but less personal (political ideologues).

 

[buddahsmoka1]

Behind the scenes, not in a prominent media role like he has. He started FiveThirtyEight just so he could spill some of his election thoughts, after being a regular commenter at DailyKos.com.

Not many statisticians extensively cover pop culture subjects such as baseball and elections (not how he did it anyways). They are often profs at universities running regressions and factor analysis. He hit a home-run in the 2008 presidential elections and he enjoys writing in journalism. It's a perfect storm really.

 

[Ernie]

Yeah? I didn't know that. No wonder conservatives detest him.

http://www.dailykos.com/blog/poblano