Background: There was no 2004-05 National Hockey Leagues (NHL) season because of a labour dispute between the players and the teams. One of the outcomes of the labour dispute was a salary cap that limits how much each team's payroll can be. The current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is expiring at the end of this season.
Role: For this assignment, you work for a statistics consulting firm that helps businesses understand and contextualize data. The T.V. network Sportsnetwork has hired your company to do an in-depth analysis of the effects of the salary cap on salaries in the NHL. Your job is to submit a report to the Sportsnetwork that can be used in their series "How the NHL's CBA changed hockey." The report needs to take the numerical data and summarize it in such a way that the sportscasters can easily communicate the effects of the salary cap on teams' payrolls to their viewing audience. You will use Megastat to do this and work in groups of three.
Assignment:
The goal of this assignment is to answer the following question, using statistics: What effects did the salary cap have on team payrolls in the NHL?
To do this, compare the team payrolls from the 2003/04 season and the 2005/06 season. Compare the data by visually representing the data and analyzing measures of central tendency and measures of variation. Once this is done, including calculations and graphs, write up an analysis where you will describe your conclusions and what they mean regarding what has happened to the team payrolls in the NHL.
Notes:
You need to properly cite all material in this report. Every report will have at least one citation as every group will need to cite where they got their data from. The style of citation (Chicago, APA, etc.) must be consistent.
As this is a report that is being submitted to a company, you need to ensure that it is well formatted and is professionally done. You are expected to submit a university level paper. As such, the report must include an introduction clearly stating the purpose, context, and limitations of the report; a discussion that will include your various measures, visuals, and analyses; and a conclusion that summarizes and distills your findings.
Though this is about the NHL, you don't necessarily need to know much about hockey. Instead the focus in on payrolls, collective bargaining agreements, and salary caps. It is important that you familiarize yourself with these ideas. Some helpful websites to begin your search might include: nhlnumbers.com and capgeek.com. Other internet sources such as the NHL team sites or Wikipedia may be helpful. A grading rubric will be provided ahead of time on the course blackboard site.