By Liv Rinaldi

Sports journalists have more tools than ever to cover stories that matter to their audiences — and many of them are sitting in public databases.

That was the message Matt Brown, publisher of the college sports newsletter Extra Points, shared Wednesday during a Sports and Society Lunch ’N’ Learn guest lecture on the power of public records in sports reporting.

“One of the beautiful things about using public records in your reporting is that you don’t need someone to pick up the phone and necessarily talk to you,” Brown said. “The law says they have to give you this stuff, whether they want to or like you or not.”

A former SB Nation editor who now runs Extra Points full-time, Brown has built his reporting niche by filing Freedom of Information Act requests with universities and state agencies. He encouraged students to look beyond box scores and postgame quotes, emphasizing that public documents can reveal untold dimensions of college athletics.

“I think it’s an opportunity to publicly demonstrate with data what a certain demographic or type of people think about something,” Brown said.

He showed how public documents can help journalists tell stories about trends in college sports—like ticket sales, attendance numbers, and sponsorship agreements—providing a fuller picture of how athletics operate.

“You can have something to build a story,” he said.

Brown also stressed the importance of accuracy and ethics, noting that while public records provide access, journalists must interpret the information responsibly.

He offered practical advice for beginners: start small.

“It’s not magic,” Brown said. “The first thing you need to do if you want to file an open-records request is figure out who the custodian of records is—who you need to send the request to.”

Brown concluded by encouraging students to view public records not just as documents, but as tools to deepen understanding and uncover meaningful stories in sports.

“There’s going to be some trial and error,” he said. “So don’t be afraid to do it a lot and recognize that the rules might be a little bit different.”

After his talk, Brown guest lectured in Ohio State’s Sports Writing and Reporting course, where he demonstrated how to report using public records data.