Rocco Commisso, a former cable TV executive who became the founder of cable giant Mediacom and owner of Italy’s ACF Fiorentina, has died. He was 76 years old.
Commisso’s death was announced by Mediacom and the Italian soccer team on Friday evening, with the team saying he died “after a prolonged period of medical treatment.”
A banker turned cable CFO, the executive founded Mediacom in 1995, when he was 45, focusing the fledgling cable company on small towns and villages that weren’t adequately served by other cable companies.
This bet paid off as Mediacom is now the fifth largest cable operator in the United States, with more than three million homes and businesses served in 22 states, making Commisso a billionaire. Mediacom is wholly owned by the Commisso family, with the leader serving as chairman and CEO until his death.
“It really is the land of opportunity. It gave this poor soul the opportunity to become something, someone,” Commisso told CBS. 60 minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi in a 2023 profile. “And that’s the beauty of America.”
Born in Calabria, Italy, Commisso moved to the United States at age 12 and graduated from Mount Saint Michael Academy in the Bronx in 1967. Growing up a soccer fan, it was at Columbia University that Commisso truly fell in love with the sport, playing for the Columbia Lions from 1967 to 1970 and serving as co-captain of the 1970 team that made Columbia’s first-ever appearance in the NCAA playoffs. The Columbia football venue is now called Rocco B. Commisso Football Stadium.
He began his professional career at Pfizer in Brooklyn, before turning to finance after obtaining his MBA from Columbia in 1975. After stints at Chase Manhattan Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, where he specialized in lending to companies in the communications sector, he joined Cablevision, eventually becoming its chief financial officer and director. After Cablevision sold to Time Warner for $2.2 billion, Commisso founded Mediacom.
“What I anticipated was that sooner or later we would be deregulated and there was a great opportunity to succeed in the smaller markets of the United States, the rural markets, largely because no one wanted it,” he said. 60 minutes.
A member of the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame, the Cable Center Hall of Fame and the Columbia University Athletics Hall of Fame, Commisso has also received the Life Achievement Award from the National Italian American Foundation, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the Vanguard Award for Distinguished Leadership, the cable industry’s highest honor.
He was also active in the cable company community, serving on the boards of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and C-SPAN.
But he never gave up football.
He acquired the New York Cosmos soccer team in 2017 and, two years later, bought the famous Serie A team, ACF Fiorentina, for $170 million.
“Football was his passion, and Fiorentina became his passion seven years ago, when Rocco took charge of the Viola club and began to love its fans, its colors and the city of Florence,” the team said. “‘Call me Rocco,’ he simply told everyone, with his extraordinary empathy.”
The pressure was on after his purchase, with Fiorentina having gone decades without a championship and with a wealthy American owner (although an immigrant from Italy) providing capital. The team became a priority, with Commisso becoming president in addition to his day job in New York running Mediacom.
“They can’t kick Rocco out of here, you know? They think they’re going to criticize me and throw me out. No, that can’t happen,” Commisso said. 60 minutes. “Rocco is a little different.”
