College algebra

Question

The mean slaraies s (in thousands of dollars) for professional football players in the United States from 2000 to 2004 are shown the table below.

year: 2000,2001,2002,2003,2004

Mean salary, s (in thousands of dollars): 787,986,1180,1259,1331.

a) find a linear model for this data?

b) use your model to predict the salaries for the years 2005 and 2010?

Answer 1

Hi John,

If you have a TI-84 (or similar) calculator, you can run a linear regression on the data. To do so:

STAT -> EDIT

In L1, type your years: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004

In L2, type in the mean salary: 787, 986, 1180, 1259, 1331

STAT -> CALC -> LinReg (ax+b)

It will give you values for a (the slope) and b (the y-intercept).

Using the equation, you can plug in 2005 and then 2010 for x to see what the mean salary (y) is in those given years.

If you were being asked to find the linear model by hand, I would suggest making a scatter plot with the data values. Draw a line of best fit through the data, and create an equation for that line using the slope and y-intercept.