I just read about this in the Times. ESPN They must be paying him a great deal of money. I get it that he loves baseball and all that but ESPN? It's one of those channels that one is forced to get if one wants any other premium channel, thereby forcing me to subsidized an already bloated sports industry. It may be that he will continue his political analysis on the Keith Olbermann show, which I read about for the first time in the Times article. But ESPN? Yikes!
ESPN is one of the few things I miss about cable TV. Also, ESPN is tied in with ABC (and ABC news) and the Walt Disney Corporation. So no disrespect to the Times but he's moving to a much bigger and wider platform, where he can cover a variety of topics, not just sports.
If that report is actually true, then conspiracy theorists can start their engines on speculating who wanted him removed from political forecasting . . . and why. . . .
ESPN is owned by ABC. The according to this Politico article, while ESPN, which has deep pockets, will be nominally be his employer, he'll be doing pretty much anything he wants to.
According to ESPN's own story on this, Mr. Silver is still keeping his hand in politics:
FiveThirtyEight.com, which had been hosted on The New York Times website since 2010, will be independent of ESPN but connect to other sites owned by the network and parent company Disney.
...
FiveThirtyEight also will continue to provide data-driven coverage of politics, including forecasts of the 2014 and 2016 elections.
Silver will serve as editor-in-chief of the site and will build a team of journalists, editors, analysts and contributors in the coming months. He will be based in New York.
It's one of those channels that one is forced to get if one wants any other premium channel, thereby forcing me to subsidized an already bloated sports industry
Well, as a big sports fan --great British Open and Tour de France finales this past weekend-- why should *I* have to pay for dozens of dreary cooking shows, some of them hosted by racist assholes? Or "history" channels that don't have any history bar the Nazis but hours of crap like Ice Road Truckers? Have I mentioned all the "reality" shows about rich housewives and drug addicts in recovery and washed-up 80's rock stars that I pay for?
Meanwhile, I can't watch the Ashes cricket matches between Australia and England because *gasp* the "already bloated sports industry" doesn't carry it here on TV, only in bars.
You shouldn't have to pay for those shows. There are 70+ sport channels on my cable service, not to mention the seemingly endless optional sport channels I neither watch history nor cooking, nor reality shows on premium cable. could subscribe to. I would prefer to subscribe to the channels I like and bypass the others.
"But according to the media research and analysts firm SNL Kagan, basic cable customers paid an average of $5.06 a month for ESPN in 2012, making ESPN, which has nearly 100 million subscribers, by far the most expensive product on basic cable. Other companies are looking to cash in as well — Fox recently announced it's launching a national sports channel to rival ESPN.
In the grand scheme of things, the deal seems reasonable to sports fans. For about the price of a large Frappuccino at Starbucks, you get a month's worth of America's best live sports lineup.
The rub is, non-sports watchers or those who don't want some sports channels also are paying and have no choice in the matter." Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/05/31/2660968/watch-it-or-not-you-pay-for-sports.html#storylink=cpy
I just read about this in the Times. ESPN They must be paying him a great deal of money. I get it that he loves baseball and all that but ESPN? It's one of those channels that one is forced to get if one wants any other premium channel, thereby forcing me to subsidized an already bloated sports industry. It may be that he will continue his political analysis on the Keith Olbermann show, which I read about for the first time in the Times article. But ESPN? Yikes!
ReplyDeleteI think the Times must have been paying him pretty well, so yeah. ESPN! Sigh.
ReplyDeleteESPN is one of the few things I miss about cable TV. Also, ESPN is tied in with ABC (and ABC news) and the Walt Disney Corporation. So no disrespect to the Times but he's moving to a much bigger and wider platform, where he can cover a variety of topics, not just sports.
ReplyDeleteI got private email from a reader saying she found a report that he would ONLY be doing sports stats at ESPN.
ReplyDeleteIf that report is actually true, then conspiracy theorists can start their engines on speculating who wanted him removed from political forecasting . . . and why. . . .
ReplyDeleteESPN is owned by ABC. The according to this Politico article, while ESPN, which has deep pockets, will be nominally be his employer, he'll be doing pretty much anything he wants to.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/07/how-espn-and-abc-landed-nate-silver-168888.html
Thanks!
ReplyDeleteNY Times Public Editor has a few interesting words to say.
Yeah, political reporters like reporting and being pundits and are threatened by the quants.
According to ESPN's own story on this, Mr. Silver is still keeping his hand in politics:
ReplyDeleteFiveThirtyEight.com, which had been hosted on The New York Times website since 2010, will be independent of ESPN but connect to other sites owned by the network and parent company Disney.
...
FiveThirtyEight also will continue to provide data-driven coverage of politics, including forecasts of the 2014 and 2016 elections.
Silver will serve as editor-in-chief of the site and will build a team of journalists, editors, analysts and contributors in the coming months. He will be based in New York.
Thank you! That's good news.
ReplyDeleteIt's one of those channels that one is forced to get if one wants any other premium channel, thereby forcing me to subsidized an already bloated sports industry
ReplyDeleteWell, as a big sports fan --great British Open and Tour de France finales this past weekend-- why should *I* have to pay for dozens of dreary cooking shows, some of them hosted by racist assholes? Or "history" channels that don't have any history bar the Nazis but hours of crap like Ice Road Truckers? Have I mentioned all the "reality" shows about rich housewives and drug addicts in recovery and washed-up 80's rock stars that I pay for?
Meanwhile, I can't watch the Ashes cricket matches between Australia and England because *gasp* the "already bloated sports industry" doesn't carry it here on TV, only in bars.
You shouldn't have to pay for those shows. There are 70+ sport channels on my cable service, not to mention the seemingly endless optional sport channels I neither watch history nor cooking, nor reality shows on premium cable. could subscribe to. I would prefer to subscribe to the channels I like and bypass the others.
ReplyDelete"But according to the media research and analysts firm SNL Kagan, basic cable customers paid an average of $5.06 a month for ESPN in 2012, making ESPN, which has nearly 100 million subscribers, by far the most expensive product on basic cable. Other companies are looking to cash in as well — Fox recently announced it's launching a national sports channel to rival ESPN.
In the grand scheme of things, the deal seems reasonable to sports fans. For about the price of a large Frappuccino at Starbucks, you get a month's worth of America's best live sports lineup.
The rub is, non-sports watchers or those who don't want some sports channels also are paying and have no choice in the matter."
Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/05/31/2660968/watch-it-or-not-you-pay-for-sports.html#storylink=cpy