Baseball's World Series follows a best-of-seven series. The series winner must win four games to be crowned World Champion. However, teams do not always play seven games. As soon as one team wins four games, the series is over. The following table lists the number of games played in every World Series from 1905 to 2011, along with the probability of that happening. For example, 20 times (19.4%) the series was over in four games. The probability table is given below.
Games Probability
4 0.1942
5 0.2330
6 0.2233
7 0.3495
- Calculate the expected number of games, the variance, and the standard deviation for the number of games played in a world series.
- Networks bid for World Series broadcasting rights, yet they cannot know with certainty how many games they will broadcast. Assume they don't make a profit unless at least six games are played in the series. What is the probability they will make a profit in any given year?