What you need to know
- The Financial Modeling World Cup recently held its championship.
- In the event, Excel experts compete to solve questions with financial modeling.
- The winner of the Financial Modeling World Cup won $10,000.
For some in the United States, the weeks leading up to Christmas represent a lull in the sports calendar. The last regular-season college football games are squarely in the rear-view mirror, and the bowl games are a couple of weeks away. College basketball is in its pre-conference schedule, which generally consists of worse games than those we'll see in January. But those in the know recognize this time of year as a chance to enjoy the hyper-competitive world of making Excel spreadsheets.
The Financial Modeling World Cup (FMWC) can now be enjoyed on YouTube and the ESPN app (via PC World). The esport involves creating Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to solve complex problems. The winner of the FMWC received $10,000 and the bragging rights for excelling at Excel. The qualifying rounds started on November 13, 2021 and the finals occurred on December 11, 2021 (spoilers for who won below).
128 participants competed in the FMWC, including competitors from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America.
Competitions consist of case studies with problems between one and five pages long. The esport experts then have to answer the questions using financial modeling. The FMWC website has some examples of case studies.
Australia's Andrew Ngai defeated Canada's Michael Jarman in the finals. Ngai won by a score of 734-280. A perfect score in the finals would have been 1,000.
While competitive financial modeling may not draw the viewership of League of Legends or other popular esports titles, 194,000 people have viewed the FMWC final.
