Linear Regression

Parity in sports is a topic that causes heated debates across every continent in the world. One could be discussing the age of Olympic gymnasts in China, stadium conditions of certain African soccer teams, or the salary caps of baseball teams in the United States. Fans that are loyal to a particular team (regardless of the sport) pay hard-earned wages on tickets, memorabilia, and clothing embossed with their favorite teams’ name. It would hard to imagine a die-hard customer going into a new season hoping the hometown team fails horribly. Following this train of thought, one would be hard pressed to find a fan that would be happy with a rival team illegally gaining a competitive advantage against their club.

The following will determine whether or not Major League Baseball organizations who pay players a higher salary are necessarily better teams. It has already been proven that clubs with a higher average salary win more championships. Seven of the last 10 World Championship teams have come from the upper echelon of total team salary. Team B will perform a linear regression analysis to determine if the top half of major league teams are winning more games than the bottom half are losing. The experiment will prove whether or not the upper echelon teams are closer or farther away from the mean (winning percentage) than the lower echelon teams.

Reference

Neiger, Chris. (2011). Salary caps impact rosters, not ticket prices. Retrieved from http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ys-investopediasalarycaps100110