Is one of your employees the next ‘Excel world champion’?

If you think your Microsoft Excel skills are pretty good, prepare to be inspired by the eight advanced users that went head-to-head in the Excel Esports All-Star Battle.

Click here to check it out on YouTube. ESPN2 even broadcast a replay of the event’s highlights.

The tournament featured timed “case study” challenges that were focused less on Finance and more on logical thinking skills and the ability to quickly build a spreadsheet. The tasks had online slot machine, regatta racing and old-school video game themes.

Strange as it sounds, the spirited commentary, analysis, scorecard tracking, countdown clock watching, dramatic tension and surprising momentum shifts (one involving a full-column Flash Fill) as the competitors demonstrated their prowess with math and the Excel program sparked lots of chatter on Twitter and YouTube.

The tournament winner was Andrew Ngai, a professional with 10,000 hours on Excel who identifies with the program’s UNIQUE function.

Commentator Bill Jelen remarked toward the end of the broadcast that watching people in competitions like the All-Star Battle using logic and formulas to come up with different ways to solve problems as fast as possible could be inspiration for solving everyday business problems.

Just think – if enthusiasm continues to build for Excel as an e-sport, it may only be a matter of time before there’s wagering on the competition!

More fun with Excel

If you thought the Excel Esports All-Star Battle was cool, there’s something called the Financial Modeling World Cup Open that’s accepting entries right now. Your top Excel users can enter for a chance to win a cash prize and appear on ESPN. They need to register by Oct. 6, 2022, and pay a $25 entry fee.

To sharpen their skills as they train for competing against the all-stars, a good resource is LearnExcelNow.com.

Or, for a unique team building activity, how about hosting your own Excel game tournament? Some fun games that can be played with the program include:

• 2048
• Candy Crunch Number Saga
• Cellsweeper
• Tetris
• Yahtzee, and
• Arena.Xlsm

Work with IT to make sure all downloaded game program files are free from viruses and malware.

Another activity is the “Team Pixel Recreation Challenge,” where people use Google Sheets and the free spreadsheet program’s color pallet to try to recreate a pixel image of a unicorn dabbing in 10 minutes.

Your team members may not come close to replicating the image in that time, but sharing the warped artwork they come up with could be an entertaining way to build morale.