'Super Bowl for Excel nerds' crowns the king of the spreadsheets in Vegas, complete with championship belt and adoring crowd: 'You'd never see this with Google Sheets'
I'm not going to suggest you watch all seven hours of the livestream of the Excel World Championship Finals but, if you start watching, you'll be treated to an exceptional creation: The Excel World Championship theme song. A kind of soft rock ballad that is AI-created but seems to be sung by an actual human, some of the lyrics to this masterpiece go as follows:
It's the Excel World Championship
Who's going to win?
It's the Excel World Championship
Who's going in the spreadsheet bin?
It's the battle of the Titans
The best keyboard tappers in the land
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They've all been training for this moment
Who's getting stuck in the function sand?
Beat that Bob Dylan. The Excel World Championships took place in December 2024 and, while this wasn't the first time the event has been held, it was the first time in-person and (by a distance) the glitziest. Held in a Las Vegas esports arena where the 12 finalists entered the running to booming announcer calls and wild applause, you'd almost be forgiven for thinking you'd stumbled on some sort of wrestling extravaganza: Until the competitors take their places in front of glowing PCs, and the game is afoot.
In each round, the competitors are set bespoke and highly complex Excel puzzles from different designers, and then simultaneously start solving them with the slowest being eliminated. One of the early rounds was based around a World of Warcraft scenario, requiring competitors to design a spreadsheet tracking 20 characters and their stats (why not try it for yourself).
The championships had a $5,000 top prize, the belt, and of course the office bragging rights. «Excel was always thought of as a back-office product,» organiser Andrew Grigolyunovich told the New York Times. "[But] these people who are working, I don’t want to say boring jobs—but, you know, regular jobs—they could become stars."
Stars might seem a bit much, but
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