Communicator spotlight: Catherine Newman of U.S. Soccer
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As the chief marketing and communications officer of the U.S. Soccer Federation, Catherine Newman is responsible for helping the sport attract new fans in the region.
Why it matters: The spotlight will be on soccer with the Men's World Cup this year, the Women's World Cup in 2027 and the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.
What she's saying: "My role is to ignite national passion for the game but also to demonstrate that soccer is more than a sport [and] that it is a force for good," she told Axios.
Catch up quick: Newman has held marketing roles at the Financial Times, News Corp, Manchester United and WWE.
- She joined U.S. Soccer as chief marketing officer in 2024 and was named chief marketing and communications officer in January 2025.
- "The FT was one of the first to have a subscription business model, because we could see that advertising alone could be very volatile depending on the economy, and so we needed to look at subscription models, but also how we could have direct relationships with our customers. And so that was really where I started.
- "And so when I was approached by Manchester United, the question wasn't do you know sport? The question was can you build a direct-to-consumer business based on fans' needs, and can you help set in motion a cultural change that means that we are far more audience-focused than what we have been — and it's been happening all over the place in sport.
- "I'm used to bringing the audience's 'why' into the organization and using it to inform everything else that we do, and that includes how we talk to them from our communications. It includes the imagery that we use, the products that we produce and the services that we provide," she says.
State of play: Newman oversees the teams responsible for external and corporate communications, integrated marketing, brand, creative, content and social media.
Zoom in: Ahead of the World Cup, Newman and her team have launched Soccer Forward, a legacy initiative aiming to make soccer the most accessible and impactful sport in America.
- "Effectively, it helps us to keep score of what matters, whether it be community benefits, health benefits, mental health benefits. It's an incredible important part of what we do," she says.
What to watch: Newman's team is experimenting with AI to determine how the tools can add value to marcomms work.
- "If you use AI and it enables you to reduce costs and be quicker, my question would be, are you better serving your audience? Because if not, what are you optimizing for? And I think that's part of the question that marketing and communications have got to ask."
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