Investigation 1: Fan cost index (due Tues, Jan 10)

You may work with one other person on this assignment, handing in one report with both names.  Word-processed reports are preferred to hand-written ones.  Please copy/paste relevant, well-labeled Minitab output into a Word file as appropriate.

The Team Marketing Report newsletter annually reports on the costs associated with attending a Major League baseball game. The organization gathers data on various and calculates a “fan cost index,” which purports to measure how much a typical family of four has to pay to attend the game. The data in the Minitab worksheet fan05.mtw pertain to costs for all 30 teams in 2005. [Remember that you can use Minitab in the Statistics Studio classroom or in any IT lab such as in the Library. You can also download Minitab to your own Windows-based computer from my.calpoly.edu by clicking on Technology and then Windows and then Minitab.]

(a) Produce (and submit) a dotplot of the distribution of the average adult ticket prices (C2). Comment on features of this distribution. [Hint: Remember to comment on shape, center, spread, gaps/clusters, and outliers. Also remember to relate your comments to the context.]

(b) Calculate the mean and median of the adult ticket prices. Which is higher? Explain why this makes sense.

(c) Calculate the fan cost index (FCI) for each team, which is defined to be the cost of two adult tickets, two child tickets, two beers, four sodas, four hot dogs, parking, two programs, and two caps. [Hint: You can perform this calculation in Minitab by typing let c12 = 2*c2 + 2*c3 + 2*c4 + 4*c6 + 4*c8 + c9 + 2*c10 + 2*c11 at the MTB> prompt. If this prompt is not showing in the Session window, try clicking in the Session window and selecting Editor> Enable commands from the menu. Also name C12 appropriately by typing a name in the gray box.] Produce (and submit) a histogram of the distribution of the FCI values. Comment on features of this distribution, and report the mean and median FCI values.

(d) Which team has the highest FCI value, and what is that value? Which has the lowest, and what is that value? Also pick another team that you are interested in; report its FCI value and comment on where it falls in the distribution.

(e) Now think about a group with whom you might attend a game, and decide on what your group would purchase (how many tickets, how many hot dogs, and so on). Report on how many people are in your group and how many of each item your group would purchase.

(f) Calculate the cost of these items that you will buy for your group, and call it a “me cost index (MCI).” [Hint: Perform this calculation in Minitab with the let command. Store the resulting variable in C13, and name that column appropriately.] Produce (and submit) a histogram of the distribution of the MCI values. Comment on features of this distribution, and report the mean and median MCI values.

(g) Which team has the highest MCI value, and what is that value? Which has the lowest, and what is that value? Also consider the team that you identified in (d); report its MCI value and comment on where it falls in the distribution.