If you’ve ever opened a spreadsheet, you probably didn’t find it particularly interesting—or feel like opening it again in your spare time.
But at many universities across the country, dedicated Excel fans are gathering in classrooms, firing up their laptops, and racing against the clock to solve complex spreadsheet problems. What started as a niche hobby has evolved into a competitive esport that culminates every year in a global tournament sponsored by Microsoft, broadcast on ESPN, and with a $100,000 prize fund.
Beyond the novelty of being a spreadsheet master, participants and supporters say Excel esports offers something meaningful: a way for Gen Z students to turn their interests into professional opportunities. It is giving students the opportunity to demonstrate highly sought after skills such as problem solving under pressure, analytical thinking, and the ability to collaborate in team environments.
For Nate Insko, now a senior at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) on the school’s Excel esports team, that edge was tangible. While looking for post-grad jobs, he interviewed with companies including Wells Fargo, Boston Consulting Group, and Raymond James, and almost every time, the applicants asked about his experience as a competitive Excel player.
“When you scroll your finger down the first page and you see, ‘Oh my gosh, he competes in Excel, what’s this like? I want to talk to this kid about this,'” Insko told. Fortune. “That alone is enough to get you into the interrogation room.”
That distinction eventually helped him secure a position as an up-and-coming banking analyst at Harris Williams — proof that in a crowded job market, even something as inconsequential as an Excel competency can be the edge that separates a candidate.
Turning Excel skills into a service offering
The Excel competition itself is far from ordinary. Students build complex formulas to do everything from risk-and-return calculations for stock portfolios to mock video game avatar tracking systems. It’s very fast, high-click-solving-problem-only with spreadsheets.
This technical ability has turned the players into unexpected campus celebrities. Last academic year, it wasn’t football or baseball that brought home the championship trophy at UTK – it was Excel.
Ben Northern, who was completing his engineering degree program, was part of the 2024 Microsoft Excel World Championship team. After six months of competition, they defeated 8,000 students from more than 70 schools around the world, culminating in the final in Las Vegas. Northern described the victory as “a dream come true.”
“Last year, I didn’t know what Excel esports was, and now we were world champions,” he said. Fortune.
The title quickly paid off. A company flew Northern after finding him competitive, and he eventually took a full-time project management job at Pilot Company, the truck-stopping chain owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
Eric Kelley, professor of finance at UTK and advisor to the Exports esports group, said that the skills used by competitive spreadsheets give students an automatic leg up in hiring—but it’s more than companies that care about applicants knowing how to argue and analyze data.
“He asks, he will look at their CV, and see [Excel esports]and they will say, what is that? Tell me about it,” Kelley said. “They start telling stories.”
As AI makes it easier for students to flip through resumes and cover letters, Kelley said having something as tangible, competitive, and niche as Excel esports can make all the difference.
“What I tell my students is that the world is hungry to solve problems, and if you can show that you can solve problems, then you are important to another employer,” he said.
NIL is not a popular sport – even the Export esports teams are taking contracts
Excel esports has also started to attract sponsorship money, which is usually reserved for sports culture.
After one of the team members applied for a job at Weigel – a local store with about 90 locations – the company became interested in the Excel team. Signed one of the first name, image, and likeness (NIL) contracts in Excel esports, providing travel and equipment costs.
“It’s a win-win for everybody,” said Greg Adkins, president of New Frame Creative, the Knoxville advertising firm that handles Weigel’s NIL deals. He helped launch an Instagram video featuring a team-shot with the same polish usually reserved for football or basketball players.
Having NIL support to your name can also go well beyond campus, Adkins added.
“If you’re talking to two job seekers, and one of them says, I know how to use Microsoft Excel, and the other says, I’m good at Microsoft Excel, I got help from a big shopping mall,” Adkins said. “Of course I think it’s beneficial.”
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