The joint enterprise between stats guru Nate Silver and ESPN, FiveThirtyEight, finally has a launch date. The multi-faceted statistical website will launch on St. Patrick's Day next Monday, March 17th. The announcement was made with just a modicum of cheeky humor giving a window into what readers will find at the new site.
We have some news! We're planning to relaunch FiveThirtyEight on March 17, a week from Monday.
As with all plans, this one could go awry. We're still completing final testing on the new website, and tweaking the final elements of the site's design. But we estimate the probability of a March 17 launch at 90.617854%.
Silver has amassed an impressive staff from some of the most-read publications in the world to provide the backbone for the site. Like Grantland, this will be different than anything ESPN has ever done. If you found Silver's work at the New York Times to be compelling, then it's likely you'll love the new, expanded FiveThirtyEight website.
The real story will be just how much of ESPN's mainstream audience Silver will be able to pull in and how autonomous the FiveThirtyEight brand will be. Will it be like Grantland where the attachment to ESPN is kept well and truly at arm's length? Will it be even further away? How often will we see 538 branded content show up on ESPN airwaves?
There's a lot of questions for the new FiveThirtyEight, we'll see the first impression it makes next Monday.
