News Site FiveThirtyEight Sold to ABC News

In the US FiveThirtyEight.com, the data-led news site founded by statistician Nate Silver, is to be sold to ABC News by its previous owner, cable and satellite sports television channel ESPN. Both seller and buyer are divisions of The Walt Disney Company.

Founded in 2008 as a polling aggregation web site by Silver (pictured), FiveThirtyEight uses statistical analysis and opinion poll analysis to tell stories about elections, politics, sports, science, economics and lifestyle. The site, which takes its name from the number of electors in the US electoral college, was acquired by ESPN in 2013, when Silver became its Editor-in-Chief.

In a statement, ABC News said that with the heightened interest in political news, FiveThirtyEight's 'distinctive style of data-literate reporting' will strengthen its own political coverage, through the addition of statistical analysis and data visualization. FiveThirtyEight will also continue to provide data-driven sports coverage in conjunction with ABC News and ESPN.

As part of the deal, Silver and the FiveThirtyEight staff - including Director of Strategy Stephanie Roos and Deputy Editor Micah Cohen - will become a part of the news division, and Silver and other FiveThirtyEight reporters will appear regularly across ABC News. Connor Schell, ESPN's EVP of Content, comments: 'FiveThirtyEight has been a tremendous asset to ESPN since Nate and the team joined us in 2013 and we are thrilled about their new home at ABC News. As storytelling around data and analytics remain an important way that ESPN serves sports fans every day, our team will continue to utilize Nate and the FiveThirtyEight experts to allow fans to benefit from their sports content'.

Web sites: www.fivethirtyeight.com , www.abcnews.go.com and www.espn.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.