Nate Silver Leaving New York Times To Join Keith Olbermann At ESPN, According To Report

Hot on the heels of the announcement that formerly hot political media property Keith Olbermann is returning to ESPN, The New York Times‘ Brian Stelter reports that 2012 election stat genius Nate Silver is moving on from the paper, to join Olbermann on his new ESPN show. Like Olbermann, Silver is returning to his sports roots, in Silver’s case as a sabermetrician, so named after the Society for American Baseball Research. Prior to the organization’s formation in 1971, they were just called “dorks.”

It’s a weird move for a guy who is such a big fish in political media, made even weirder by the way Stelter reported it, sourcing, not Nate Silver or the NYT, but anonymous ESPN sources:

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.

An ESPN spokeswoman declined to comment on Friday night. Mr. Silver declined to comment. The employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Silver’s deal could be announced as soon as Monday.