Mediacom announced late Friday the passing of founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso. He was 76. A representative said he had undergone a prolonged period of medical treatment.

Commisso founded Mediacom in 1995 and built it into the fifth-largest cable provider in the U.S. with more than 3 million customers in 22 states. The company went private in 2011 and is wholly owned by the Commisso family. From 2021 through 2025, Mediacom was named a U.S. Best Managed Company by Deloitte Private and the Wall Street Journal.

Commisso also was a big name in soccer circles, purchasing the New York Cosmos in 2017 and the world-renowned ACF Fiorentina soccer club in 2019. In 2023, CBS’ “60 Minutes” featured on the exec, asking him which of his day jobs were the most difficult. Leading ACF Fiorentina easily won. “I get more criticism here than in 1,500 communities in the U.S.,” Commisso quipped in the segment.

In announcing his passing, the company described him as one of the most successful Italian immigrant entrepreneurs in America. Commisso, who was a member of the Forbes 400 and 50-year veteran of the cable industry, often spoke of his roots. He immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 12 from Calabria, Italy. After graduating from Mount Saint Michael Academy in the Bronx, he attended Columbia University on a full undergraduate scholarship where he earned both a BS degree in industrial engineering and an MBA degree from the Graduate Business School. He also played soccer for the Columbia Lions from 1967–1970.

In 2022, Commisso and his wife Catherine donated one of Columbia’s largest gifts for undergraduate scholarships to the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, with The Rocco and Catherine Commisso Scholarship to annually support a group of up to 20 students in perpetuity.

Commisso graduated from business school in 1975, working for a decade in finance, including at Chase Manhattan Bank (now J.P. Morgan Chase) and Royal Bank of Canada. From 1986 to 1995, he served as EVP, CFO and director of Cablevision Industries Corporation, which was the eighth largest cable operator in the U.S. when it merged with Time Warner in January 1996.

He previously served on the boards of NCTA, C-SPAN, CableLabs, Cyndx and the National Italian American Foundation. Among his numerous honors are the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the National Italian American Foundation’s Life Achievement Award, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and the Vanguard Award for Distinguished Leadership, the cable industry’s highest honor. Commisso was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame, the Cable Center Hall of Fame and the Columbia University Athletics Hall of Fame.

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