Mediacom Communications Announces the Passing of Rocco B. Commisso

MEDIACOM PARK, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 16, 2026--

With profound sadness, Mediacom Communications announces the passing of Rocco B. Commisso, the company’s founder, chairman, and chief executive officer. Commisso was one of the most successful Italian immigrant entrepreneurs in our nation’s history. A member of the prestigious Forbes 400, his illustrious career with the cable television industry spans nearly 50 years.

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Commisso founded Mediacom in 1995 to acquire and reinvigorate cable systems in the nation’s underserved smaller communities. In 2000, he directed a successful initial public offering for Mediacom, paving the way for the company’s dramatic growth into the nation’s 5th largest cable television provider, offering high-speed data, video, phone, and mobile services to over 3 million households and businesses in 22 states. He took the company private in 2011, and now Mediacom is wholly owned by the Commisso family.

Commisso began his business career at Pfizer Inc.’s manufacturing facility in Brooklyn, NY. After graduating from business school in 1975, he spent a decade in the financial community, initially at Chase Manhattan Bank (now J.P. Morgan Chase) and then at Royal Bank of Canada, where he led the bank’s U.S. lending activities to companies in the media and communications sectors. From 1986 to 1995, he served as executive vice president, chief financial officer, and director of Cablevision Industries Corporation. During his tenure there, privately held Cablevision Industries grew from the 25th to the 8th largest cable company in the nation, serving 1.3 million customers at the time of its merger with Time Warner.

Commisso previously served on the boards of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, C-SPAN, CableLabs, Cyndx LLC, and the National Italian American Foundation. During his distinguished business career, he was bestowed with numerous awards and honors, including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of 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 several esteemed organizations including the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame, the Cable Center Hall of Fame, and the Columbia University Athletics Hall of Fame. Under his leadership, Mediacom was named a U.S. Best Managed Company by Deloitte Private and the Wall Street Journal from 2021 to 2025. In 2023, Commisso’s incredible life story was featured by 60 Minutes in a segment entitled “Only in America.”

Born in Calabria, Italy, Commisso immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 12. He graduated from Mount Saint Michael Academy in the Bronx in 1967. 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. At the Business School, he was elected president of the student body and was the recipient of the prestigious Business School Service Award.

Commisso played soccer for the Columbia Lions in the 1967–1970 period. He was a member of a freshman squad that finished with an undefeated record and served as co-captain of the 1970 team that made Columbia’s first-ever appearance in the NCAA Playoffs. For his exploits on the field, Commisso became a three-time All-Ivy League Honoree and was invited to try out for the U.S. Soccer Team organized for the 1972 Olympics.

Over his more than 50 years as an alumni supporter of Columbia soccer, the men’s soccer program was among the most successful in the Ivy League and all major sports at the university. In the mid-1970s, he co-founded Friends of Columbia Soccer and, from 1978 to 1986, he was its chairman. During this time, Columbia won 8 straight Ivy Championships and became the only Ivy League school ever to compete in the final game of the NCAA Championship.

In 2004, on the 250th anniversary of Columbia’s founding, the school’s newspaper, the Daily Spectator, listed Commisso among Columbia’s 250 greatest undergraduate alumni of all time. For many years, Columbia has awarded an annual Men’s Soccer Prize in his name. In 2013, Columbia recognized his contributions to the university by naming its soccer venue, at the school’s Baker Athletics Complex, the Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium.

Throughout his life, Commisso poured significant personal and corporate resources into funding educational opportunities for young people. Through Mediacom’s World Class Scholars Program, September 11th Memorial Scholarship Fund, Entrepreneur of Tomorrow Award, and other initiatives, he provided educational scholarships to 4,000 students nationwide. In 2014, he established the Rocco B. Commisso American Dream Fund at his high school in the Bronx - Mount Saint Michael Academy - to ensure that the school can continue to recruit and educate deserving young men for generations to come. In 2022, he and his wife established the Rocco and Catherine Commisso Scholarship at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science which is designed to annually benefit a cohort of up to 20 students in perpetuity.

In January 2017, Commisso purchased a majority ownership stake in the New York Cosmos and became the club’s chairman. The Cosmos are the most recognized American soccer brand in the world. After beginning play at Yankee Stadium in 1971, the iconic club won a record total of 8 professional soccer championships and brought some of the biggest stars in international soccer to the USA including Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia, Carlos Alberto, and more recently, Raúl and Marcos Senna. In July 2025, the New York Cosmos were acquired by North Jersey Pro Soccer based in Paterson, NJ. The Commisso family continues to maintain a minority ownership stake in the club.

In June 2019, Commisso acquired world-renowned ACF Fiorentina and became president of the decorated Italian soccer club. Since its founding in 1926, Fiorentina has been based in beautiful Florence, a city known throughout the world for representing the very best of Italy’s culture. Commonly referred to as La Viola for its distinctive purple colors, Fiorentina competes in Serie A, the top division of Italian soccer. His lasting contribution to the historic club is Rocco B. Commisso Viola Park, the state-of-the-art sporting center opened in 2023 that serves as the permanent home for all ACF Fiorentina’s football teams, including the men’s, women’s, and youth squads.

ABOUT MEDIACOM COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION

Mediacom Communications Corporation is the 5th largest cable operator in the United States and the leading gigabit broadband provider to smaller markets primarily in the Midwest and Southeast. Through its fiber-rich network, Mediacom offers high-speed data, video, phone, and mobile services to over 3 million households and businesses across 22 states. The company delivers scalable broadband solutions to commercial and public-sector customers of all sizes through Mediacom Business and sells advertising and production services under the OnMedia brand. More information about Mediacom is available at mediacomcable.com.

Rocco B. Commisso

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Thom Tillis isn't holding back during his final year in Washington.

“I'm sick of stupid,” the two-term Republican from North Carolina said from the Senate floor recently as he derided President Donald Trump 's advisers for stoking a potential U.S. military takeover in Greenland.

It was just one of several moments during the opening weeks of 2026 when Tillis, who isn't seeking reelection, seemed unconstrained by the anxieties that weigh down many of his GOP colleagues who are loath to cross the White House for fear of triggering a political backlash.

He's one of just two Republicans, along with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who participated in a congressional delegation to Denmark this week while Trump threatens to seize Greenland. He was quick to criticize the Justice Department's investigation of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. As Trump and his allies try to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, Tillis backed the eventual display of a plaque honoring police who defended the Capitol that day.

He has shown particular frustration with Trump's top aides, notably deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller.

“I don't want some staffer telling me what my position is on something,” he said after Miller gave a forceful interview on CNN saying Greenland “should be part of the United States.”

“He made comments out of his depth,” Tillis added.

The moves reflect the sense of freedom lawmakers often feel when they know they won't have to face voters again. They've helped attract swarms of reporters who follow Tillis through the halls of Congress as he offers candid thoughts on news of the day. And they've won support from the handful of other Republicans who sometimes cross Trump, including Murkowski, who called out “good speech!” as she passed him in the Capitol following his floor remarks on Greenland.

For the 65-year-old Tillis, who has won elections in one of the most politically competitive states, the approach is notable for the way in which he's pushing back against the White House. He's hardly staking out a position as a never-Trumper and repeatedly — often effusively — expresses support for the president.

Rather, he's targeting much of his criticism at senior White House aides, sometimes raising questions about whether Trump is receiving the best advice at a consequential moment in his presidency as the GOP enters a challenging election year.

“I really want this president to be very, very successful,” Tillis said this week. “And a part of his legacy is going to be based on picking and choosing the right advice from people in his administration.”

Heading into the midterms, Tillis said, “I want to create a better environment for Republicans to win.”

Tillis, who had a challenging childhood involving multiple moves, worked at an accounting and consulting firm before entering politics. He was the speaker of North Carolina's House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. He said this week that he approaches his concerns from a business perspective.

“Sometimes there's just things that people need to say, ‘not a good idea, not in our best interest, hard to implement,” he said. “I probably should have started by saying that’s what I did in the private sector for about 25 years.”

Beyond Miller, Tillis has raised questions about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's immediate response to the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. Hours after the shooting, while an FBI investigation was still unfolding, Noem defended the officer and said Good “attempted to run a law enforcement officer over.”

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill the next day, Tillis said he was “surprised by the level of certainty in her comments” and suggested such rhetoric influenced Trump, who was also quick to defend law enforcement.

“She's advising the president so the president's comments had to have come I assume through the advice of the secretary,” he said.

Tillis' balancing act was on particularly vivid display earlier this month on the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, when he helped broker the deal to publicly show the plaque honoring officers that was held up by House Speaker Mike Johnson. Speaking from the Senate floor, he called the attack “one of the worst days in my 11 years in the U.S. Senate.”

He lauded the staff and U.S. Capitol police who defended lawmakers and helped ensure that Congress ultimately certified Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. But he also struck fiercely partisan tones, blaming Democrats for embracing a movement to defund the police and criticizing media coverage of protests that turned violent during the summer of 2020.

Tillis framed Jan. 6 as a “wonderful stress test for democracy” before arguing that the Biden administration went “overboard” by prosecuting “people who were dumb enough to walk into the building but they weren't the leaders.” He then pivoted to criticism of Trump's sweeping pardons of Jan. 6 defendants, including those who attacked police.

But even then, he didn't directly blame Trump, again focusing on his advisers.

“The president, on the advice of somebody in the White House — and I hope I find out the name of that person — also pardoned criminals who injured police officers and destroyed this building,” Tillis said. “If you had that happen to your office or your business, would you think well they were just a little hotheaded and let them go and not prosecute them? Or would you hold them accountable for destroying the citadel of democracy?”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Tillis' assessment of Trump's aides. The senator rejects any suggestion that he's stepped up his criticism because of his impeding retirement, calling the notion “hysterical.”

His relationship with Trump hit a low point last summer when he opposed the president's sweeping tax and spending cuts package. Trump accused Tillis of seeking publicity and said on social media that the senator was a “talker and complainer, NOT A DOER.” Tillis announced his retirement soon after voting against the measure, one of only two Senate Republicans to do so.

Trump has been more sanguine in response to Tillis' more recent comments. Asked this week about the senator's criticism of the Fed probe, Trump said, “That's why Thom's not going to be a senator any longer, I guess.”

“Look, I like Thom Tillis,” Trump said. “But he's not going to be a senator any longer because of views like that.”

Associated Press writer Stephen Groves in Washington contributed to this report.

FILE -Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., speaks during a confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Oct. 13, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Sarah Silbiger/Pool via AP, File)

FILE - Wearing a beaded bolo around a pin that says "United States Senate," Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., listens to thanks from members of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, after the passage of a bill granting the tribe with federal recognition, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)