The Microsoft Excel world championship is as brilliantly entertaining as it sounds
Don’t knock it before you try it
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Over the weekend, ESPN broadcast a replay of a recentesportsevent that saw the world’s most advancedMicrosoft Excelusers go head-to-head in a knockout tournament.
Organized by the people behind the Financial Modeling World Cup, the Excel “All-Star Battle” took place back in May. It began with eight competitors, who went up against one another in a series ofspreadsheet-based challenges until eventually a champion was crowned.
The action might have been difficult to follow for us mere mortals, if not for the live commentary, interviews and post-tournament analysis, all of which were delivered with an enthusiasm to rival any other sports coverage. The internet loved it.
The World “Excel” championships are on espn2 right now just by the way. pic.twitter.com/QbhsTsZyIUAugust 7, 2022
The next big esport?
ESPN has a long-standing reputation for embracing non-traditional sporting events, including esports. The network launched its coverage back in 2015, before becoming the first to broadcast an esports event in a prime time slot three years later.
It hasn’t all been plain-sailing – ESPN had to call time on its daily esports coverage for cost-cutting reasons at the height of the pandemic - but the continued willingness to embrace events like the Excel Esports All-Star Battle shows the broadcaster plans to stay the course.
It might come as a surprise to some that there is an appetite for a spreadsheet-based esports tournament, but the rise of streaming culture has proven there’s a market for pretty much anything.
The comments section of the liveYouTubebroadcast of the All-Star Battle was full of people debating optimal strategy, cheering on the competitors and generally expressing their delight at the contest.
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“If you’d told me 20 years ago that we would all be watching Excel competitions, I’d have thought you were crazy,” said Bill Jelen, one of the commentators, as the event was coming to a close.
“But it’s actually fascinating to watch these people come up with different ways to solve problems - and solve them really quickly. And these same formulas and logic could be used to solve everyday business problems.”
MicrosoftExcel events might not rise to the top of the Twitch rankings any time soon, but you might just find they capture your imagination in a way you didn’t expect. The next event in the calendar: theFMWC Openin early October.
Joel Khalili is the News and Features Editor at TechRadar Pro, covering cybersecurity, data privacy, cloud, AI, blockchain, internet infrastructure, 5G, data storage and computing. He’s responsible for curating our news content, as well as commissioning and producing features on the technologies that are transforming the way the world does business.
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