Menu
Download the app

SBJ subscribers – Enhance your experience with the revamped iOS app

Game Changers

Catie Griggs, Atlanta United FC


A
fter five years at Turner Sports focusing on business development, Catie Griggs was looking for a new challenge in her sports industry career. She found it in Atlanta with research consultancy Futures Sport & Entertainment, where she provided resources for brands, rights holders and media properties for the past three years.
Catie Griggs
Atlanta United FC //
Vice president, business operations
(formerly of Futures Sport & Entertainment)
As the company launched in the U.S. 2 1/2 years ago, Griggs helped build a business from the ground up, in large part due to cultivating strategic relationships within the industry.

With that success, Griggs embarks on a new challenge, joining one of Major League Soccer’s newest franchises — Atlanta United FC — as vice president of business operations. She will lead integrated marketing, strategy and operations for the team on the heels of moving into its new home — Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

During her time at Futures, Griggs increased the company’s roster to 35 clients operating within every major sport in the U.S. That includes working with the NBA, NFL, MLS and NASCAR, along with major tennis properties that have helped the company carve out a space in the competitive sports landscape.

Griggs this past year was behind the successful effort to win new business from Coca-Cola and grew Futures (U.S.) from a one-person operation to a team of eight analysts across three offices.

Griggs credited Futures’ unselfish team and drive to stand out in the industry. “Our clients are seeing our value and keep coming back, and to me that’s a key part of our success. It’s a young and hungry team ready to roll their sleeves up.”

— Thomas Leary



  • Where born: White Plains, N.Y.
  • Education: Dartmouth College B.A.; Tuck School of Business, MBA.
  • Attribute I look for when hiring: Attitude. Most skills can be taught, but intrinsic motivation and kindness are more difficult to coach.
  • Networking tip I’ve learned: Be authentic and be prepared.
  •  Best advice I’ve received for career development: Always put your best foot forward — it’s a small world and you never know who might be in a position to help (or hurt) your chances at getting your dream job.
  • Sports business industry can foster a healthier work-life balance by: Allowing flexibility in where and when work gets done, when possible.
  •  Proudest professional achievement: Growing Futures from an unknown brand to the analytics provider for more than 35 of the largest and most sophisticated rights holders and brands in the U.S. sport landscape.
  •  If I had it to do over again, I: Wouldn’t change anything. All of the disparate experiences have gotten me to where I am today.
  • Woman in sports business I’d most like to meet: Billie Jean King.
  • Is discussion about challenges women face working in sports necessary or played out? Until there is a greater representation of women in leadership roles, it’s necessary. However, I believe that the conversation should be broadened to support anyone, male or female, who is seeking out ways to be a top contributor both at work and at home.
  •  Charity supported: Guiding Eyes for the Blind.

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2017/09/11/Game-Changers/Catie-Griggs.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2017/09/11/Game-Changers/Catie-Griggs.aspx

CLOSE