Like footballers taking the field in a giant stadium, the 12 finalists passed through a bright “hype tunnel,” some wearing jerseys with sponsorship logos. As a presenter yelled introductions and cameras captured their every move, they approached a neon-lit stage to loud cheers.
Then the men sat down at their desktop computers, opened their Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, and started typing.
Excel, a program that performs complex calculations on behalf of a human being, is often and rightly associated with business drudgery. But last month, at a Las Vegas e-sports arena that usually hosts Fortnite and League of Legends, spreadsheet-savvy finance professionals were treated like minor celebrities as they gathered to solve fiendishly complex Excel puzzles in front of an audience of around 400 people, with more watching a livestream ESPN3.
Organizers call the event the Microsoft Excel World Championship. “Yes, it’s a thing,” says the official website.
At stake was a $5,000 prize, a wrestling-style championship belt and the title of best spreadsheet player in the world. But the organizer, Andrew Grigolyunovich, dreams bigger. He hopes to turn competitive Excel into a popular e-sport where pros compete for prizes worth millions of dollars and glory in the big leagues.
“Excel has always been considered a back-office product,” said Mr. Grigolyunovich, a Sudoku champion from Latvia. But in Vegas, “those people who work, I don’t mean boring jobs – but, you know, regular jobs – could become stars.”
If that sounds too ambitious, we’d like to introduce you to Erik Oehm, a software developer from San Francisco, who watched the action from a front row seat.
“It’s the Super Bowl for Excel nerds,” Mr. Oehm said. “If Excel is the center of your universe, it’s like hanging out with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.”
The “LeBron James of Excel,” as he was introduced in Las Vegas, was Diarmuid Early, 39, an Irish financial consultant living in New York, who entered the arena in jeans, sandals and a swimsuit. patterns resembling abdominal muscles. The Kobe Bryant was Andrew Ngai, 37, a soft-spoken Australian actuary known as the Annihilator, who began the world championship as the three-time defending champion.
“We’re friends, for now,” Mr. Early joked as they posed for a photo. But his anxiety was palpable.
“I probably take it too seriously,” he said. “I’m very invested in it.”
The format of the final was a model of World of Warcraftan online role-playing game. It took 12 men (this particular nerdfest was mostly a guy thing) to design Excel formulas to track 20 avatars and their vital signs. If that sounds incredibly complicated, it is: players were given a seven-page instruction booklet.
To prepare, Mr. Early adjusted the width of his Excel columns with the precision of a point guard lining up a 3-point shot. Mr Ngai queued up a YouTube compilation of “targeted music”.
After an announcer started the 40-minute event: “Five, four, three, two, one and Excel!” — the 12 players leaned over their keyboards and began plugging in formulas. An example: “=CountChar(lower(D5), “W”)” allowed a competitor, Michael Jarman, to determine how many times the letter “W” appeared in a spreadsheet.
The goal was to score as many points as possible while staying one step ahead of the sliding kills. As the cascading responses filled the Excel columns, Mr Ngai took a significant lead, with audible gasps. Then he got stuck on a problem, just like Mr. Early. Mr. Jarman took the lead as the first two frantically tried to resolve the issues.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” Mr. Oehm chanted.
“Well, that’s ridiculous.”
The first electronic spreadsheet was VisiCalc, an “electronic blackboard” that automated calculations with pen and paper. Microsoft introduced Excel in 1985. The company says its suite of office software, which includes Excel, has more than 400 million users. (Google has said (that more than three billion people use its free suite of products, including Gmail and a spreadsheet called Sheets.)
Part of the appeal and intimidation factor of worksheets is their indefinite scope. Excel can be a meeting organizer or a tool for gathering the number of coronavirus cases in a country, for example.
Speaking in almost philosophical terms, Bob Frankston, founder of VisiCalc, said that those who treat Excel simply as a financial tool are ignoring its vast potential. “They don’t realize it’s a mirror” of their mind, he said. “The financial planning tool they see is in their head.”
But for millions of people, it’s still just a tool to accomplish the tasks their supervisors assign them. It can say a lot about our times that the instruments of our servitude are also the basis of our games.
The first Excel competition, ModelOff, began in 2012. But ModelOff, which featured financial problems that took hours to solve, wasn’t designed for thrills.
When ModelOff was discontinued after seven years, Mr. Grigolyunovich, a former competitor, created the Financial Modeling World Cup, the organization that puts on the Excel Championship and other events. The championship – which has several corporate sponsors, including Microsoft – was held in person for the first time last year. He said his shortened rounds, eliminations, commentators and pre-match “hype tunnel” were designed to build tension and attract spectators.
“I remember thinking, ‘Well, this is ridiculous, why do we have this?’” Mr. Jarman, 30, a British financial consultant who lives in Toronto, said of the tunnel. “But it’s still a lot of fun. And if other esports are doing it, we should be doing it too.
Mr. Grigolyunovich said his vision for future tournaments includes more spectators, bigger sponsors and a $1 million prize for the winner. For now, many fans are learning about the Excel Championship through ESPN’s annual obscure sports showcase, where it’s sandwiched between competitions like speed chess and the World Dog Surfing Championships.
Reluctant Rivals
Vegas competitors said winning requires not only Excel know-how, but also a keen eye for problem solving, coolness under pressure and intuition – or luck. Add in the thrill of a live audience, they say, and the competition begins to resemble a sport in its unpredictability, even its physicality.
They seemed less interested in Mr. Grigolyunovich’s visions of fame and fortune, and more focused on adapting to turning their niche hobby into a television spectacle. Most of the time, they came to have fun with other Excel enthusiasts. Between rounds, they attended spreadsheet creation workshops and added each other on LinkedIn.
More rivalries might help generate some enthusiasm, several contestants said — but they were too polite and on too friendly terms with each other to initiate any.
“Basically anything they do to make the show more fun for the viewers makes it more traumatic for the contestants,” Mr. Early said.
There was a bit of celebrity stardust in the air, however, as Mr. Early and Mr. Ngai, the LeBron and Kobe of Excel, fielded a flood of selfie requests.
“This guy is incredible,” one of the quarter-finalists, Joy Hezekiah Andriamalala, a finance student from Madagascar, told a reporter after taking a photo with Mr. Ngai. “Do you know him?” Personally?”
Mr Ngai, who seemed resigned to the idea of losing his championship streak, admitted being a minor celebrity for a few days was “pretty cool”. He said he began to view competitive Excel as a sport rather than a hobby, setting aside more time to practice.
On stage, the former tried to prevent Mr. Jarman from running away with the championship belt. Mr Early won a semi-final by turning maze screens made up of colored cells and emojis into numbers. In the final, Mr. Ngai attempted a Hail Mary: filling his remaining cells with random numbers.
As the clock reached zero, Mr. Jarman turned to look at the leaderboard.
“Ten seconds, is something going to happen?” » shouted a commentator, Oz du Soleil. Nothing did.
Mr. Jarman jumped from his seat and threw his hands in the air, his face glistening with sweat. The audience had a blast. “Look at that!” Look at that! » shouted Mr. du Soleil.
Mr. Jarman held the championship belt aloft as someone threw glitter at his head. Mr. Oehm let out a breath he had been holding.
“You would never see that with Google Sheets,” he said. “You would never have that level of passion.”