Nate Silver Moving to ESPN

Brian Stelter reports, "Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff" (via Memeorandum):

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.

At ESPN, Mr. Silver is expected to have a wide-ranging portfolio. Along with his writing and number-crunching, he will most likely be a regular contributor to “Olbermann,” the late-night ESPN2 talk show hosted by Keith Olbermann that will have its debut at the end of August. In political years, he will also have a role at ABC News, which is owned by Disney.

This ought to be interesting.

It's good for Silver, whose resources as a sports analyst have been badly underutilized at NYT. But it'd be hilarious if Silver were to force Olbermann off message to the point of violating his contract by talking about politics. Otherwise, Silver will be rolled out periodically during the election year to talk about his presidential predictions. In 2016 it's going to be a GOP year, so allegations of Silver's bias for the Dems will be seriously tested.

Anyway, more at the link.