Are the Excel Championships Really an eSport?

Are the Excel Championships just another bit of content for ESPN? Could it keep the Pac 12 alive? More importantly, is it an eSport and can we gamble on it? Listen in!   Featured Guests Andrew Grigolyunovich – Founder and CEO of the Financial Modeling World Cup David Clayton Brown, Ph.D. – Associate Professor of Finance at the Eller College of Business at the University of Arizona “Mr. Excel” Bill Jelen – Excel Expert, Consultant, Author & Play-by-Play Announcer Adrien Bouchet, Ph.D. – Richard & Helen DeVos Foundation Endowed Chair; Eminent Scholar of the DeVos Sport Business Management Program at UCF Sean Dennis, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor, Kenneth G. Dixon School of Accounting at UCF   Episode Transcription Announcer from the movie “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story”: Live from Las Vegas, It’s the Las Vegas International Dodge Ball Open here on ESPN 8: The Ocho, bringing you the finest in seldom scene sports from around the globe since 1999. If it’s almost a sport, we’ve got it here. Paul Jarley: But I have to admit I did not see this coming. This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I’m Paul Jarley, Dean of the College of Business here at UCF. I’ve got lots of questions. To get answers, I’m talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, is this really a thing? Onto our show. Paul Jarley: While, it most certainly isn’t “Dodgeball,” and we aren’t breaking down Average Joe’s, we are talking about the Excel Championships that just aired on ESPN, and will be heading to Las Vegas in December. Are the Excel Championships even close to an eSport? I really need help understanding why Excel is on ESPN. To form an opinion on this, I’ve assembled the following panel of experts. Andrew Grigolyunovich is the Founder and CEO of the Financial Modeling World Cup and joins us all the way from Latvia. David Clayton Brown is an Associate Professor of Finance at the Eller College of Business at the University of Arizona. Bill Jelen goes by the moniker Mr. Excel. He has authored several books on Excel and is the competition’s play-by-play guy. Adrian Bouchet is the DeVos Endowed Chair of Sports Management and Chair of the Sports Business Management Program here in the College of Business. Finally, Sean Dennis is an Associate Professor in our Dixon School of Accounting. Listen in. Paul Jarley: So one of the very first podcasts I did was on eSports and the premise of it was whether eSports was going to be a thing or not. I came down on the side that I thought it was going to be a big thing that I thought it wouldn’t just be a big thing in the professional ranks, that it would be a big thing in the college ranks as well. And one of the reasons I thought that that would be true is it would be a way for universities to promote