Like soccer players on the field of a giant stadium, the 12 finalists ran through a glittering “hype tunnel,” some wearing jerseys emblazoned with sponsor logos. As the announcer loudly introduced himself and cameras captured their every move, they approached the neon-lit stage to loud cheers.
The men then sat down at their desktop computers, opened a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and began typing.
As a program that performs complex calculations on behalf of humans, Excel is often, and understandably, associated with corporate grunt work. But last month, at an esports arena in Las Vegas that typically hosts Fortnite and League of Legends tournaments, spreadsheet-wielding financial experts demonstrated diabolically complex Excel files in front of a crowd of about 400 people. When they gathered to solve puzzles, they were treated like minor celebrities. , watch live streams on ESPN3, and more.
Organizers are calling the event the Microsoft Excel World Championship. “Yes, that's a problem,” the official website says.
At stake was a $5,000 cash prize, a wrestling-style championship belt, and the title of world's best spreadsheeter. But organizer Andrew Grigorynovich has bigger dreams. He wants to turn competitive Excel into a popular e-sport where professionals compete for millions of dollars in prize money and big-league glory.
“Excel was always thought of as a back-office product,” said Grigolyunovich, a Sudoku champion from Latvia. But in Las Vegas, “the people working are, I don't want to say boring jobs, but normal jobs. They could be stars.”
If that sounds too ambitious, I'd like to introduce you to Eric Ohm, a San Francisco software developer who had a front row seat to the action.
“This is the Super Bowl for Excel geeks,” Ohm said. “If Excel is the center of your world, this is like hanging out with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.”
The “Excel LeBron James” introduced in Las Vegas is Diarmuid Early, a 39-year-old Irish financial consultant living in New York, who enters the arena wearing jeans, sandals, and a jersey patterned to resemble his abs. did. Kobe Bryant, 37-year-old Andrew Ngai, a soft-spoken actuary from Australia known as the Annihilator, started his world championship as the reigning three-time champion.
“We're friends, for now,” Early joked as he posed for a photo. But his anxiety was obvious.
“I'm probably taking it too seriously,” he said. “I’m very invested in it.”
The format of the final was a mock-up of the online role-playing game, World of Warcraft. It took 12 guys (this particular geekfest was a primarily male event) to design an Excel formula to track 20 avatars and their vital signs. If that sounds unfathomably complicated, here it is: Players were given seven pages of instructions.
To prepare, Earley adjusted the column widths in Excel based on the accuracy of a point guard's 3-point shot. Mr. Ngai has posted a compilation called “Focus Music” on YouTube.
After the announcer began the 40-minute event with “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and Excel!” — the 12 players leaned over their keyboards and began typing formulas. An example: “=CountChar(Lower(D5),”W”)” One of our competitors, Michael Jarman, allowed us to calculate how many times the letter “W” appeared in a spreadsheet.
The goal was to earn as many points as possible while winning through rolling eliminations. As answers filled up Excel column after column, Ngai was so far ahead that there were audible gasps. Then, like Mr. Early, he got stuck on a problem. German took the lead as the two front runners desperately tried to troubleshoot the problem.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” cried Mr. Ohm.
“Well, this is weird.”
The first electronic spreadsheet was VisiCalc, an “electronic whiteboard” that automated pen-and-paper calculations. Microsoft introduced Excel in 1985. The company says its suite of office software, including Excel, has more than 400 million users. (Google announced that more than 3 billion people use its suite of free products, which includes Gmail and a spreadsheet program called Sheets.)
Part of the appeal of spreadsheets, and part of their intimidation, is that their scope is undefined. For example, Excel could be a date organizer or a tool for collating the number of coronavirus cases in a country.
In almost philosophical terms, VisiCalc founder Bob Frankston said that people who treat Excel simply as a financial tool are ignoring its enormous potential. “They don't realize that it's a mirror of their own minds,” he says. “The financial planning tools they see are in their heads.”
But for millions of people, it's still just a tool to accomplish the tasks assigned to them by their corporate supervisors. It may say something about our times that the instruments of our servitude are also the basis of our game.
The first Excel competition, ModelOff, started in 2012. But ModelOff dealt with economic problems that took hours to solve, and it wasn't designed with thrills in mind.
When ModelOff was discontinued after seven years, Grigolyunovich, a former competitor, founded the Financial Modeling World Cup, an organization that ran the Excel Championship and other events. The championship, which features multiple corporate sponsors including Microsoft, was held in person for the first time last year. He said the shortened rounds, repechage, commentators and pre-fight “hype tunnel” were designed to build tension and attract spectators.
“I remember thinking, 'Well, this is ridiculous, how could this be happening?'” Mr. Jarman, 30, a British financial consultant who lives in Toronto, said of the tunnel. “But it's all in fun. And if other esports do it, so should we.”
Grigorynovich said his vision for future tournaments includes larger spectators, bigger sponsors and a $1 million prize for the winner. For now, most fans learned about the Excel Championship through ESPN's annual low-key sports showcase, sandwiched between competitions like Speed Chess and the World Dog Surfing Championship.
a passive rival
Competitors in Las Vegas said winning requires not just Excel know-how, but also problem-solving acumen, calm under pressure, intuition or even luck. Add to that the excitement of a live audience, they say, and competition begins to resemble sports, if not in its physicality, then in its unpredictability.
They seem less interested in Mr. Grigorynovich's visions of fame and fortune and are more focused on adapting their staid, niche hobby into a broadcast television spectacle. It seemed like that. Most of the time, they were there for geeky activities among fellow Excel enthusiasts. In between rounds, they attended spreadsheet workshops and added each other on LinkedIn.
Multiple contestants said more rivalries could help increase excitement. But they were too polite and friendly to each other to get anything started.
“Essentially, anything they do to make it more enjoyable for their audience makes it more traumatic for their competitors,” Earley said.
But there was also a bit of celebrity stardust in the air, as Mr. Early and Mr. Ngai, as well as Excel's LeBron and Kobe, sent in one selfie request after another.
One of the quarterfinalists, Joy Hezekiah Andriamalala, a finance student from Madagascar, told reporters after taking a photo with Ngai. “Do you know him? Personally?”
Ngai seemed prepared for the possibility of losing his winning streak, but admitted it was “pretty cool” to be a minor celebrity for a few days. He said he started treating competitive Excel more like a sport than a hobby and started setting aside more time for practice.
On stage, the front runners tried to stop German from running away with the championship belt. Early won the semi-final round by converting a maze of colored squares and emojis into numbers. In the final round, Ngai attempted a Hail Mary by filling in the remaining cells with random numbers.
As the clock neared zero, German turned and looked at the leaderboard.
“10 seconds, what's going to happen?” exclaimed commentator Oz du Soleil. Nothing happened.
Mr. Jarman jumped from his seat, throwing his hands in the air, sweat glistening on his face. The audience roared. “Look at that! Look at that! cried M. du Soleil.
Mr. German held his championship belt high as someone threw glitter at his head. Mr. Ohm let out the breath he had been holding.
“You would never see something like this in Google Sheets,” he said. “You'll never have this level of passion.”
