FiveThirtyEight: I Guess This Makes Sense to Someone

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Did Nate & Co. have any idea what was going on in the last presidential election? Am I the only one that doesn’t like the looks of this head scratcher? Maybe I’m missing something. But the financials? Is this a business? Read on.

Benjamin Mullin reports on FiveThirtyEight’s move away from ESPN and to ABC at The Wall Street Journal (abridged)

Statistics guru Nate Silver is leaving ESPN, but he’s staying under the Walt Disney Co. umbrella.

FiveThirtyEight, the politics and news site Mr. Silver founded, is moving to Disney-owned ABC News after five years at the sports broadcaster, ESPN and ABC News said Tuesday.

In a statement, Mr. Silver said:

“This is an exciting move for FiveThirtyEight and our staff … With ABC we’ll be able to expand our political coverage at a crucial time, while maintaining a relationship with ESPN for our sports coverage.”

Potential buyers of FiveThirtyEight were told it was losing about $6 million annually on revenue of about $3 million.

Read more here.

Granted, Nate wasn’t the only one who blew it. But the polling-wunderkind has had a hard time coming back from just how badly he did blow it. Even a parody site had better predictions. Reread the work Debbie and I did during our on-the-ground research gathering trips throughout the Eastern Seaboard. The predictive power of actually talking to Americans and driving through their neighborhoods was much greater than all the statistical analysis done by Nate & Co.