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Sportswriter Matt Brown has an exhaustive knowledge of the world of college athletics, and a couple of years ago, he decided to harness it to make a video game that allows you to step into the shoes of an athletic director. It was a pretty cool concept, and one that has a lot in common with an interactive feature that recently popped up on ESPN’s website.
If you spend a fair amount of time keeping tabs on college sports (particularly football), there’s a very good chance you’re familiar with Matt Brown, the former SB Nation staffer who’s been running his Extra Points newsletter since 2020.
The Ohio State product has mastered the art of using Freedom of Information Act requests to land some juicy scoops, and there was no one who was more plugged in when it came to the development of EA Sports’s long-awaited reboot of its college football video game franchise than Brown was.
In 2023, Brown created a video game of his own in the form of Athletic Director Simulator 3000, which was a largely tongue-in-cheek experiment designed to give players a taste of what it’s like to do that particular job. It eventually spawned a slightly more polished version dubbed ADS 4000, and it sure seems like it inspired a copycat that led to Brown taking aim at ESPN.
Matt Brown fired some shots at ESPN after it seemingly ripped off his Athletic Director Simulator concept
On Tuesday, ESPN sent out a now-deleted tweet with a link that directed followers to a webpage featuring an interactive experience designed to simulate the trials and tribulations of being an athletic director at an institution of higher learning.
It’s a fairly straightforward text-based game where players embark on a journey where they’re tasked with making a number of decisions that mirror situations actual ADs may encounter in real life. Those choices influence how you’re graded across a few different categories, and you’ll ultimately receive an overall rating when your “career” comes to an end.
It did not take long for people to realize it had more than a few things in common with Brown’s creation, and he eventually chimed in while piggybacking on the backlash to drum up some attention for the spiritual predecessor.
anyway, if you see this and think “boy, what a neat idea”, have I got a computer game for YOUhttps://t.co/OnyPoLCzfp
— Matt Brown (@MattBrownEP) December 16, 2025
It certainly appears ESPN is aware someone ripped off Brown without any attempt to credit him when you consider it took down the tweet it used to try to drum up traffic, but the webpage it linked to is still live as of this writing.
You previously had to shell out $8 for a monthly subscription to Extra Points to access ADS 4000, but Brown has decided to make it free to play for the rest of December.
Well played.