Geek Is Gone! Nate Silver To Dump New York Times for ESPN

I?m Outtahere: Nate Silver is going to the worldwide leader in stats, ESPN.

By Forward Staff July 20, 2013

Nate SIlver is taking his stats and going to ESPN.

The geeky numbers guy who turned the electoral vote counting into a national obsession with his FIveThirtyEight blog is leaving the New York Times for the sports network, the Times reported.

He will be on staff at a new late night show run by Keith Olbermann, who recently rejoined the sports network. He will also write during election years for ABC, which like ESPN is owned by Walt Disney Co.

Silver worked for a baseball statistical analysis company before becoming interested in politics and has spoken about sports regularly in recent months.

Silver’s three-year contract with The Times is set to expire in late August. His departure would be a big blow to the Gray Lady, which has heavily promoted him. The blog is also a major source of traffic for the Times web site, which has succeeded in winning significant numbers of paying subscribers.

Silver’s analysis of election results and polling has made him a national pointy-headed celebrity.

After he correctly predicted the results in virtually all the states last year, President Obama joked that Silver could even look inside his mind to predict which turkeys the president would pardon on Thanksgiving.

Besides ABC and ESPN, NBC News and its cable news channel MSNBC was another interested party.

The Forward’s staff contributors are listed in our masthead.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO