A promising new trend in the e-sports world now exists under the name of the Microsoft Excel World Championship.
This is a truly engaging and balanced event of technical expertise and competition which already took its spot in the e-sports field. The Las Vegas December 2024 venue with a $5,000 first-place prize clearly demonstrated how highly sought-after technical expertise can be turned into audience engagement.
The Microsoft Excel World Championship (MEWC) 2024 finals. Image credit: Microsoft
12 top contenders took to the stage in front of 400 of their fans, with ESPN3 co-broadcasting the 40-minute of “hull vs bowl” match alongside classic events such as speed chess and the World Dog Surfing Championships.
The technical difficulty of problems posed to competitors was also not your daily task of multiplying table rows by columns. Participants solved complex Excel puzzles such as the rotation of a spreadsheet. The final round was related to the World of Warcraft, asking to monitor the vital signs for 20 avatars. The elimination format, removing players every five minutes based on performance, added a layer of competitive pressure to pure technical execution.
Spreadsheeter challenge winner, Toronto-based financial advisor Michael Jarman, won 1st prize of $5,000.00, and thus became the world’s best “spreadsheeter” of this year. He won against the third-time defending world champion Andrew Ngai.
What’s in the future for the Microsoft Excel World Championship?
The event’s organizers are open about ambitious vision for future growth. The event organizer Andrew Grigolyunovich says his team’s mission is to swell the prize pool, to $1 million, by encouraging attendance of participants, and by soliciting sponsoring purposes. This trajectory also corresponds to an increasing affirmation of complex spreadsheet activity as a tradeable skill for which high financial returns can be secured.
What stands out in particular is the comparison made with other platforms – as one contestant pointed out, “This is not something you’d get with Google Sheets. You’d never get this level of passion.” This difference shows how Microsoft Excel’s rich set of functions and its existing user base has allowed it to go beyond its initial role as a business application.
The integration of traditional sporting presentation elements—from the “hype tunnel” of the NBA to the “championship belt”—visually goes hand in hand with challenging technical specifications. In order to create a unique experience for the spectators, organizers mix a professional side of the challenge with entertainment content. This hybrid format may be used as a model for future contests based around traditional excellence in relatively mundane business software.
If you’re interested in observing this event, you can watch the recorded livestream. Just note, that it lasts seven hours:
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Sources: The New York Times, ZDNet, TechCrunch, Microsoft
