Experiencing Competition on the Global Excel Stage

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Theme music. A championship belt. People fighting it out on the stage.

No, this isn’t professional wrestling — it’s the Microsoft Excel World Championship (MEWC), where the best number-crunchers in the world compete for prize money, oversized WWE-style belts and the right to call themselves the ultimate spreadsheet champion.

Australian actuary Andrew ‘The Annihilator’ Ngai dominated the tournament for three years straight and was dubbed the Kobe Bryant of Excel. But since being dethroned by British Canadian Michael ‘The Jarman Army’ Jarman last year, he’s no longer the only one drawing attention.

Melburnian Grayson Huynh, a self-confessed foodie who first used Excel to track restaurant reviews, also made it to the 2024 finals in Vegas — narrowly missing out on the title.

A young man is sitting at a computer with headphones around his neck.

Last year, Melbourne man Grayson Huynh made it into the finals of the Microsoft Excel World Championship. This year, he’s hoping to do one better. Source: Supplied / Grayson Huynh

With this year’s tournament weeks away, Huynh is hoping to improve on his finals finish.

“It was nerve-wracking on stage,” he tells SBS News.

“You hear commentators in the background, you’re on someone else’s computer, there’s a live audience …. it’s like public speaking.”

Inside the world of Excel championships

The MEWC is less like an exam hall and more like a bright, flashy esports event.

Qualifying rounds take place around the world, with the top 256 funnelled into an October knockout that whittles them down to 32 Vegas-bound finalists.

The competition is livestreamed on YouTube and broadcast on ESPN from Vegas, replete with a live audience, Fox Sports-esque commentators and even a catchy theme song: It’s the Excel World Championship, who’s going in the spreadsheet bin?

Last year’s final challenge asked players to design formulas for tracking avatars and their vital signs in a World of Warcraft-inspired scenario. Some competitors use Python — a programming language — to solve their problems, while others rely purely on Excel formulas. The only thing you need is speed and accuracy, Huynh says.

“It’s like solving a Rubik’s Cube,” he says.

There are a lot of algorithms, but everyone has different approaches.

Speaking to SBS News ahead of a qualifying test, Huynh admits nerves are still part of the process.

His training regimen includes reviewing past cases under timed conditions, consulting other competitors about problem-solving strategies and building mental fortitude.

A man smiling in front of a sign that says 'Microsoft Excel World Championship 2024'

Between live commentators and an audience watching his every move, Grayson Huynh says strong mental fortitude is key to succeeding in the competition. Source: Supplied / Grayson Huynh

“I didn’t do too well on stage. There were a lot of mental challenges that I wasn’t able to get a hold of,” Huynh says.

“You get stage fright. I was wondering if I could even type properly.”

This time, he is focused less on formulas and more on the mind.

“Just like any other sport, mental strength is an area I can overlook.”

The other big league

Not to be confused with the MEWC is the Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship, strictly for students aged 13 to 22. The top competitors from each country are flown to Florida for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to claim the title. Lose, and you can’t come back.

Guatemalan teenager Carmina Solares was 16 when she competed, placing in the global top 10 — the only girl and the only Latin American to do so.

By day, she was a regular teenager: wearing lip gloss, scrolling TikTok and listening to One Direction. By night, she dreamed of Excel spreadsheets.

“I dream of Excel spreadsheets,” Solares tells SBS News.

“I would invent formulas in my sleep and try them out when I woke up.”

Students looking at their computers in a classroom.

Carmina Solares competed in the Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship in 2023, being the only girl and Latin American to place in the top 10. Source: Supplied / Spreadsheet Champions

For the now 18-year-old, placing in the top 10 is more than just a personal accolade.

“I feel like Guatemala isn’t heard of much in these areas. We have limited opportunities,” Solares says.

The ones who can get out are either super smart and win a scholarship, or they’re wealthy.

Solares’s story is one of six followed in Spreadsheet Champions, a new Australian documentary that premiered at Melbourne International Film Festival in August.

Melburnian director Kristina Kraskov admits she didn’t think the competition was real at first. But soon, she found herself hooked by its unique world.

“A lot of people mistake Excel for being something really benign and boring, but the immediate question is: Why are these people spending so much time dedicating themselves to a competition most people do not care about and have never heard of?” she says.

Kraskov started to notice how cultural differences influenced the seriousness with which students approached the competition.

“In Australia or the US, it’s not exactly cool to be good at school. Whereas Vietnam has a huge reverence for exam test-taking and doing well … so therefore the competition is a much bigger deal,” she says.

Prize money also plays a role.

“$7,000 to an Australian teen is pretty cool,” she says.

“But $7,000 to someone in Cameroon is more than a lot of people’s average income for the year.”

A close-up of a trophies that say '2023 Champion Microsoft Excel'.

Australian documentary Spreadsheet Champions follows six school students as they compete for the title of the best Excel spreadsheeter. Source: Supplied / Spreadsheet Champions

For Kraskov, the documentary’s focus was always about acceptance.

“It was always going to be complete openness and acceptance for people loving what they love and doing what they do best. It shows what you can achieve if you let people who are square pegs go into their square hole and do their square thing,” she says.

A life in the gridlines

Huynh’s dedication to spreadsheets goes well beyond competitions.

He keeps track of flight itineraries, house inspections, investments, and Melbourne restaurants he’s logged for over a decade.

“It was always a running joke that people said I should compete. I never really considered it seriously … but then I figured it would be a good way to motivate me to learn Excel again and try my hand at this competition I’ve heard heaps about,” he says.

Last year, around 600 to 700 people signed up for the MEWC. Huynh made it into the finals — something he counts as a bucket list moment.

I want to do better than last year, but there’s no pressure.

While Excel esports is still niche in Australia, Hunyh thinks it’s growing.

“It’s definitely picking up. I feel like there’s more traction this year … I’m trying to get into the content creation space too,” he says.

A man in a white shirt is posing for a photo outdoors.

Grayson Huynh never thought he’d compete in the Excel championship. But after being egged on by his friends, he decided to throw his hat in the ring. Source: Supplied / Grayson Huynh

Among the competition’s audience are a mix of corporate folk and what Huynh calls “Excel influencers”.

It’s a thriving online subculture. One TikToker, on a self-proclaimed “50 date mission”, tracks her dating life in a spreadsheet, complete with formulas predicting who’s most likely to ghost (Hinge users over 35, if you’re curious).

Other creators profit off downloadable templates — including habit trackers, budget planners, cleaning schedules and even Christmas trackers.

Then there are influencers who’ve racked up millions of views teaching tips and tricks on TikTok or YouTube, or over in Reddit’s Excel community, which boasts more than 800,000 members.

For those of us whose Excel prowess extends to =SUM — who dream of mastering VLOOKUP (an Excel function that allows users to look up and aggregate data from other sheets into a column or table) one day, or tackling array formulas without fear — watching pros tear through problems in seconds has its own addictive appeal.

Heck, you might even find yourself loving it, like Huynh: “Excel is my bread and butter … Give it a try — you might enjoy it. You might get hooked like me.”