Mike Silver At NFL Network, Leaves Yahoo! Sports For Upgrade

Mike Silver, my friend from Cal days past and present and future, has finally landed at the NFL Network, and in the process gone fully from old to new media. Mike previously spent six glorious years at Yahoo! Sports, and before that was the legendary Senior Writer with Sports Illustrated.

Here’s a talk with Mike, or “Sil,” at the NFL Draft lunch at Chelsea Piers in New York, in 2008:

And when Cal won the Pac-10 Championship for the first time in 50 years in 2010:

At any rate, Mike’s managed get a better deal from NFL Network, moved away from a downsizing Yahoo! Sports that saw the sacking of great reporters like Jason Cole. But it must be said that even though Yahoo!’s bottom line was getting tighter – it’s profits were less, even though revenues were up after the last reporting period – there was no indication Silver was next on the chopping block.

Yahoo! Sports could no longer justify the high-salaries the writers commanded, and for one simple reason this blogger knows from running and monitoring the ads on Zennie62 blogs and videos: videos pay better than print, and by a factor of as much as $10 to $1 on a daily basis.

The NFL Network knows this, and because of that, will have Mike more on television than just writing copy for the website.

Details aside, I’ve long believed Mike needed television and television needed Mike. Sometime missing: his own YouTube channel.

If The NFL Network isn’t careful, someone might steal him.

Stay tuned.