Forecasting Baseball Attendance

Business & Economic Forecasting for Managers

Long Term Project

Choose a *dependent variable.*

The dependent variable I chose is attendance for the Baltimore Orioles’ 2009 regular season home games. I took attendance figures from official Major League Baseball box scores found on Yahoo! Sports and baltimoreorioles.com. The 81 data sets reflect the Orioles’ 81 home games.

What in*dependent variables do you think *explain the dependent variable*? *Create two groups. Group 1 = Variables that you think are likely to significantly *affect*the dependent variable, i.e. variables that the dependent variable will depend upon. Group 2 = Variables that you think might influence the dependent variable, but you are not so sure/confident about. Write a*n *explanation of why you included the variables you did, and where you did your research (if you needed to do any).

Independent variables that will affect the dependent variable (attendance) are temperature, opponent (whether the opponent is the Red Sox, Yankees, or a National League team), promotional nights, week day games, and weekend nights. I will group the variables opponents, interleague, week day games, and weekend games into Group 1 because I believe they will have the most effect on attendance. Group 2 will consist of temperature and promotional nights because I am least confident they affect attendance.

Collect data on all Group 1 variables, and on any Group 2 variables for which data is easy to obtain*. Describe briefly where you got the data, and if there are any apparent problems with it* (e.g. reliability, accuracy, suitability, etc.)*. *If data was not available for one or more of your Group 1 variables, were you able to use a proxy?

I collected data from Major League Baseball box scores found on Yahoo! Sports and baltimoreorioles.com. At the bottom of every box score, they include attendance...