Fighting Irish Media (FIM), the communications, production, design and branding arm of Notre Dame Athletics, has made several structural changes to better serve the University’s worldwide fanbase and student-athletes.
In the newly-designed organization, three functional verticals were developed: Production, Design & Brand and Communications. Longtime college athletics communicator Katy Lonergan has been tabbed to lead the communications vertical, while Derek Coleman leads the production wing and Emma Schneider heads up the Design & Brand function of the group.
In conjunction with those leadership moves, Claire (Kramer) Cunningham has been promoted to Director of Football Communications and will lead the day-to-day media operations for the Fighting Irish football program.
Lonergan, the Associate Athletics Director (Strategic and Football Communications) and Advisor to the Head Football Coach, oversees 14 full-time communicators who lead day-to-day media relations, social media and student-athlete branding for Notre Dame’s 26 sports and over 700 student-athletes. In addition to leading this vertical and her day-to-day work within football communications, Lonergan also provides strategic support to Dick Corbett Head Football Coach Marcus Freeman and works alongside the Fighting Irish Media leadership team to help guide strategic messaging for the athletics department.
Before arriving at Notre Dame, Lonergan served as the Director of Football Communications for the University of Kansas for nine years, working directly with the coaching staff and student-athletes to promote the program. Additionally, she led editorial efforts with the ESPN+ program, Miles To Go, that followed the journey of national championship head coach Les Miles during his first season in Lawrence. Prior to returning to her alma mater in 2007, Lonergan worked at Ole Miss with a variety of sports, including football, women’s basketball and track and field.
Coleman, the newly-minted Associate Athletics Director (Production), is now tasked with overseeing a team of 16 digital media content creators who support FIM’s live event, in-venue and team content video productions. Coleman has been with FIM since 2018 and will coordinate a video production arm that produced over 270 live productions (linear and digital broadcasts, video board shows, press conferences and special events) along with over 60 original feature pieces in 2023-24.
Prior to arriving in South Bend, Coleman served as the Director of Multimedia at St. John’s University overseeing all aspects of video and live event production for the Red Storm Athletic Department. Before his time in Queens, Coleman spent 10 months at Siena College in Loudonville, New York, serving as an intern with Siena Athletics, handling communications & video production efforts for the department. The Howard County, Maryland native is a 2013 graduate of the University of Delaware, where he was a four-year member of the football team, including the team that reached the 2011 Division I FCS National Championship game.
Schneider, the Associate Athletics Director (Creative Director), is entering her third full year with FIM and is responsible for leading a team of designers to develop and execute the visual direction of the athletics department. This encompasses projects for every Notre Dame sport, and can range from branding campaigns to social media graphics, set design, in-venue graphics, and more.
In 2023, Schneider led the design team in the creation of the athletics-wide “All Fight” campaign, designed to connect all Notre Dame sports under one cohesive message and design style. In collaboration with Tim O’Connor, the Creative and Brand Program Director, Schneider also designed and executed the full game branding for Notre Dame Football’s season-opening game in Dublin, Ireland. This involved developing the overall look and feel of the event, the field and in-venue design, as well as designs throughout the city of Dublin and the highly successful “Notre Dame Street” activation.
Claire (Kramer) Cunningham, who returned to the FIM athletics communications department last year, has been named Director of Football Communications. Preceding this role, Cunningham worked as Senior Associate Athletics Communications Director with the Notre Dame Football and Baseball programs. In this position, she assisted with day-to-day media operations for the football program, and oversaw all media, content, social media, statistics and strategic messaging for the baseball program.
Before returning to Notre Dame in August of 2023, Cunningham was the Public Relations Manager at global design firm Populous. She oversaw public relations strategy and execution for the Americas region of the firm with projects including some of the world’s most innovative and iconic venues and experiences. Cunningham, a 2018 graduate of Notre Dame, first worked at Notre Dame from 2019-21 after a year with the Baltimore Ravens. During that first stint, she was the primary public relations contact for Notre Dame Softball and Swim & Dive and secondary contact for Notre Dame Football.