Need Help With Hard Math Problem????

Question

If you could please explain how to figure this out...Here is what the problem says...

Basketball ...The table shows the number of people who attended (WNBA) games from 1997 through 2001. Describe how you could predict the attendance for (WNBA) games in 2002. What is your prediction? How can you check your prediction?

year attendance

1997--- -----1,082,093

1998--- -----1,630,315

1999--- -----1,959,733

2000--- -----2,322,429

2001--- -----2,323,164

Thank you for your help,

ML

Answer 1

You have a time series data here. To check if you may use linear regression, compute for the correlation coefficient, r. The closer r is to 1, the more significant the linear relationship is between year and attendance, and the more it would be advisable to use linear regression to forecast attendance using year as independent variable. Here, r = 0.958757969. Therefore, we may confidently use linear regression.

Next, calculate the slope and the y-intercept of the linear regression line:

Slope, b = 317,425.60

y-intercept, a = (632,670,227.60)

Next, determine the equation of the regression line:

y = a + bx

y = (632,670,227.60) + 317,425.60x

Next, forecast attendance if x = 2002:

y = (632,670,227.60) + 317,425.60x

y = (632,670,227.60) + 317,425.60(2002)

y =  2,815,823

Therefore, the expected attendance in 2002 would be 2,815,823.

I used MS excel.

Answer 2

calculate the average raise is attendance each year then add than to however many ppl there were in 2001

Answer 3

I would take the average growth  shown if 4 years

1,241,071 in change over 4 years aobut 310,268 per year.

Take attendance in 2001 and add average increase.

2,633,431 people shoould attend....

Answer 4

http://img83.imageshack.us/my.php?image=...

HOPE I HELPED AND CHOOSE ME FOR BEST ANSWER!!

Answer 5

1. Persistence: 2323164 (same as 2001)

2. Extrapolation: 2323899 (2000-->2001-->2002 )

3. Curve fit: about 2323500 (growth slow down )

4. Check prediction by find the actual attendance of 2002.

5.  All of above assuming there is no other "external factors".

     Such as, maybe the ticket price doubled in 2002,

     or super star had just joined WNBA....

Answer 6

The best linear predictor is to take the conditional expectation. If this is beyond your reach then try taking the differences between the number of people over the consecutive years and graph it. look for a pattern. you'll see that the growth of the numbers are steadily slowing down (decreasing exponentially)