ESPN's Nate Silver, who "founded the stats-oriented news site FiveThirtyEight for sports and political junkies, is expanding video production with short films that aim to demystify data for a wider audience," according to Lucas Shaw of BLOOMBERG NEWS. The first film, "The Man Vs. The Machine," will be released tomorrow and focuses on chess matches "between Gary Kasparov and an IBM computer" in '96 and '97. Future shorts include “The Cowboys and the Indian,” which is about a programmer from India "who developed a system to evaluate college football players" for the Cowboys. Silver is "counting on video to boost the popularity of the site" and will "soon offer a podcast as well." The videos "complement and enliven FiveThirtyEight’s data-heavy analysis." Silver: "We want to demonstrate that statistics is not boring; it’s often really fascinating. Video is an important form of storytelling." Five videos "will be up on the site by April," and Silver is currently "tweaking the site to draw more traffic and advertising." Silver said that he "gives FiveThirtyEight a B+ score that will remain unchanged while he builds up the site." In addition to videos and podcasts, Silver also "wants to invest in longer-form reporting and investigate topics such as the education system and earthquakes." The site is "still seeking a sponsor for its videos," but ESPN "is confident given the ad support for the network’s '30 for 30' short film series, which airs on Grantland, and has a broader distribution plan for Silver’s clips." ESPN Films Senior Dir of Development Dan Silver said, "They will appear where anybody can touch something digitally" (BLOOMBERG NEWS, 10/20).
