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Win At Any Cost

How should pro sports teams spend their money?

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Win At Any Cost

How should pro sports teams spend their money?

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How should pro sports teams spend their money? Professional sports teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars on player salaries, and conventional wisdom says that teams with higher payrolls perform better. But maybe conventional wisdom is wrong.

In this lesson, use linear regressions and r-squared values to analyze data from professional sports leagues, evaluate how various factors correlate with wins, and debate whether a higher payroll is good business strategy.

REAL WORLD TAKEAWAYS

  • Careful data analysis can inform smart decision-making, including how sports teams should spend their money.
  • In the NFL, MLB, and NBA total team salary and the salary of the highest player are both positively correlated with the number of wins; however, the cost of an additional win is greater than the additional revenue predicted from the added win.
  • A variety of factors, not just the payroll, affect how much revenue a team earns

MATH OBJECTIVES

  • Interpret the slope and intercept of linear regression in the context of real-world data
  • Interpret R-square value for linear regressions
  • Use linear regressions to justify decision-making

Appropriate most times as students are developing conceptual understanding.
Algebra 2
Bivariate Statistics
Algebra 2
Bivariate Statistics
Content Standards
Mathematical Practices

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