The Lions football team is having a meeting with fans to discuss salaries. The team president says, “we can’t afford to be any m
ore generous because our average salary is almost $3,000,000 a year.” A fan replies, “Nonsense. Your average player only makes $750,000 a year—you can easily afford a raise.” If they are using the same set of data, how can their averages be different? Which measure of center might the president have used?
Which might the fan have used?
The president is using the mode because it is the most obvious answer. The fans are using the iconic mean which is the middle number of the data set. They can be different because different people think of numbers differently.
