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Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

nytimes.com

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Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#41

Post by newbie12 »

rickdale wrote: post #11

ESPN has come a long way since 2012 Super Bowl production where they had Herm Edwards explaining the Patriots offense to 2 toddlers who couldn't stand in the same place for a second. It was probably the worst segment in ESPN history. I really like this move though because lately a lot of ESPN women seemed to have moved to CBS or NBC ie Rachel Nichols, Erin Andrews, Michelle Beadle and I am sure more. Not that Nate Si…

Keith Olbermann is a dreadfully partisan and negative person. I can't believe they are bringing him back.

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#42

Post by jmduke »

rickdale wrote: post #11

ESPN has come a long way since 2012 Super Bowl production where they had Herm Edwards explaining the Patriots offense to 2 toddlers who couldn't stand in the same place for a second. It was probably the worst segment in ESPN history. I really like this move though because lately a lot of ESPN women seemed to have moved to CBS or NBC ie Rachel Nichols, Erin Andrews, Michelle Beadle and I am sure more. Not that Nate Si…

During the NBA season, ESPN's commentary and analysis paled in comparison to TNT. I think this is partially by design -- the best analysts don't make for the biggest audiences -- but I think ESPN is understanding that the landscape is more competitive than they thought.

I'm looking forward to Silver working with Simmons. His column would fit it quite nicely at Grantland.

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#43

Post by anigbrowl »

markbao wrote: post #15

I think it's a waste of Nate Silver's intelligence to work on something like sports , when there are many other bigger problems to potentially be solved with the help of statistics and prediction. Why might ESPN be a good option for him? Can someone help me see the other side of this? It's totally his decision to make, and I'm sure he's looked at his options rationally, and life circumstances and past experience and…

it's a waste of Nate Silver's intelligence to work on something like sports

That's quite amusing considering that he became famous as a pro baseball statistician. I agree with other posters pointing that BB stats are actually a good way of getting kids interested in math. I'm not American but living here has caused me to fall in love with baseball and admire the number-crunching that goes with it. Every so often I see a parent and child at a game filling out a paper score card for the game together, which I think is just fabulous.

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#44

Post by jayzalowitz »

albertsun wrote: post #35

While I'm sad that Nate Silver is leaving the Times (I work there), I'm also really excited to see what he's going to be able to do with all the sports data that ESPN has. I'm expecting incredible things to come.

Albert! How are you!

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#45

Post by homosaur »

I'm less annoyed that Silver is going to work on trivial stuff and more annoyed that he's doing it for ESPN, who is doing everything possible to make sports coverage as dumb as possible.

I mean what the hell is Silver going to do there? Tell us the % of time Skip Bayless trolls about LeBron or the probability of Tebow related coverage in the upcoming SportsCenter?

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#46

Post by crapshoot101 »

This is fascinating. To out-hipster myself, I've been a BP subscriber since way back when Nate was famous for the PECOTA model - really bringing a comp engine to baseball to predict results / outcomes, etc etc. ESPN just seems strange for him, unless they threw a crazy amount of money - he loses out in brand prestige of going from NYT to them, so I have to assume the financials were a major factor.

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#47

Post by mccolin »

crapshoot101 wrote: post #46

This is fascinating. To out-hipster myself, I've been a BP subscriber since way back when Nate was famous for the PECOTA model - really bringing a comp engine to baseball to predict results / outcomes, etc etc. ESPN just seems strange for him, unless they threw a crazy amount of money - he loses out in brand prestige of going from NYT to them, so I have to assume the financials were a major factor.

I am also a longtime fan of his from his BP days. Here's to hoping ESPN makes great use of his skills. Buried as a contributor to a late night program seems, on the surface, like a situation ripe for underutilization of his talents.

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#49

Post by wglb »

markbao wrote: post #15

I think it's a waste of Nate Silver's intelligence to work on something like sports , when there are many other bigger problems to potentially be solved with the help of statistics and prediction. Why might ESPN be a good option for him? Can someone help me see the other side of this? It's totally his decision to make, and I'm sure he's looked at his options rationally, and life circumstances and past experience and…

Wasn't sabermetrics his first love?

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#50

Post by [deleted] »

newbie12 wrote: post #41
rickdale wrote: post #11

ESPN has come a long way since 2012 Super Bowl production where they had Herm Edwards explaining the Patriots offense to 2 toddlers who couldn't stand in the same place for a second. It was probably the worst segment in ESPN history. I really like this move though because lately a lot of ESPN women seemed to have moved to CBS or NBC ie Rachel Nichols, Erin Andrews, Michelle Beadle and I am sure more. Not that Nate Si…

Keith Olbermann is a dreadfully partisan and negative person. I can't believe they are bringing him back.

[deleted]
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