Silver Connection

Ordinarily a personnel move among the various organs of Big Media isn't particularly interesting, but this one is very interesting for a number of reasons -- Nate Silver, perhaps America's most famous stat guy, is leaving the New York Times for ESPN:

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.

Silver's main claim to fame relates to his essentially calling the results of the last two presidential elections, along with most of the results of the downticket races as well. What's particularly surprising is that he's throwing in with Olbermann, who might be the biggest ego in an industry that's filled with titanic ones.

The move tells you a couple of things, I suspect. A few thoughts:

• The New York Times might still have tremendous prestige in certain quarters of this nation, but a defection of this magnitude is a bad sign. The Times once was able to keep its top talent around; perhaps that's no longer the case.
• Despite protestations to the contrary, Olbermann is clearly going to be bringing his politics to ESPN. 
• ESPN has become increasingly problematic over the years, mostly because they've become too powerful in the sports world. I enjoy several of their programs quite a lot, especially Baseball Tonight, along with their usual game coverage. They have let politics enter into the equation more often than I'd prefer, but day to day they don't go into the subject much and mostly stick to sports. If that's changing, it would be even more problematic.
• While the political views of most sports fans vary widely, it's always a good bet to assume that sports journalists are going to be lefties. There are a number of reasons for this, but the main one is that sports, especially professional sports, are often in bed with big government. Every major sports pundit in the Twin Cities was shilling for a new Vikings stadium and they all were shilling for Target Field, Xcel Energy Center and Target Center before that.
• It's worth watching whether the creeping politicization of ESPN hurts their business. I watch sports for a lot of reasons, but one of the most important is that it provides a break from the politicization that you find in so many other parts of our lives. ESPN is going to be getting some new competitors soon, most notably the NBC Sports Network and the new Fox venture. Is adding a political component the right bet?