http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/469049e2-fa37-11e2-98e0-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2aubHYNl4
This summer has provided that opportunity. In 2010, he licensed FiveThirtyEight.com – his political data blog named after the number of votes in the US electoral college – to The New York Times for three years. As the clock ticked on the deal, he was courted by other news organisations, Wall Street firms, sports teams and Hollywood studios. The NYT wheeled out editors and executives to persuade him to stay but in July he defied expectations by selling FiveThirtyEight to ESPN. Walt Disney’s deep-pocketed sports network “was kind of a 9.5 out of 10 or a 9.8 out of 10 or a 10 out of 10,” Silver explained on a conference call announcing his decision, with only slightly less precision than his readers have come to expect. The deal, “web-focused” at first but likely to include on-air appearances for coverage of major sporting events and Disney’s ABC News broadcasts, gives Silver a chance to mix politics with his original passion for applying overlooked statistics to forecast baseball players’ performances.
