Mediacom Communications said Tuesday that it has promoted Jon Coscia to SVP of Customer Service and Jack Griffin to SVP of Finance and Treasurer.

Coscia, who was formerly group VP of Customer Service,  will take full responsibility for customer care, including centers for sales, retention and field support and will report to EVP of Operations John Pascarelli.

“Since joining Mediacom, Jon has established himself as an industry expert in his field and introduced numerous groundbreaking, technology-driven solutions aimed at elevating the customer experience,” Pascarelli said in a press release. “I am confident his strategic insight and proven leadership of over 850 employees will further advance the quality of our customer care.” 

Griffin, previously group VP, Corporate Finance, will continue to oversee Mediacom’s corporate finance and treasury group, including debt financing, liability and cash management, banking relationships, investments, external reporting, mergers and acquisitions and business development. He will continue to report to Mediacom EVP and chief financial officer Mark Stephan.

“Jack has played an integral role in shaping the company’s financial profile over the past several years and achieving our much-coveted investment grade rating,” Stephan said in a press release. “His skillful stewardship of Mediacom’s balance sheet and the corporate finance and treasury group will benefit Mediacom for the many years to come.”

Both men joined Mediacom in 2007. 

“I am pleased to offer my heartfelt congratulations to both Jon and Jack. They have long been recognized as emerging leaders within our organization, and their promotions are well deserved,” Mediacom chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso said in a press release. 

Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso received an honorary Doctorate in Business Administration from Iowa’s Drake University earlier this week, in part for his company’s commitment to the state. 

“While other broadband providers exited Iowa, Mediacom — under Mr. Commisso’s leadership — invested in infrastructure critical to the economic vitality of our state,” Drake University president Marty Martin said in a press release. “Mediacom has demonstrated its shared commitment to Drake University’s inspiration statement: To strengthen the communities we serve.”

Iowa is one of Mediacom’s largest markets and in 2017 the company made 1-gigabit internet service available to more than 300 communities in the state as part of a three-year, $1 billion capital investment plan. In 2020, Mediacom chose Iowa as the location for the first ever field trial showcasing the multi-gigabit speeds of the cable industry’s new 10G platform.

“Home to nearly 1,600 of our dedicated employees and a third of our loyal customer base, Iowa has long been the crown jewel of Mediacom’s 22 state network operations,” Commisso said in a press release. “It is a tremendous privilege to receive an honorary degree from Drake, a distinguished university that sits in the heart of Iowa’s capital and whose administration, faculty and graduates have made immeasurable contributions to the state’s economic, educational and cultural advancement.” ▪️

Mediacom Communications founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso and his wife Catherine have made one of the largest gifts to date to Columbia University’s Fu School of Engineering and Applied Science, creating a scholarship program that will support up to 20 undergraduate students at the school each year in perpetuity. 

The Rocco and Catherine Commisso Scholarship will help boost the university-wide campaign initiated by Columbia President Lee Bollinger to raise $1.4 billion in financial assistance by June 2025.

“This Commisso Scholars program comes at a time when support for students is more critical than ever,” Bollinger said in a press release. “We greatly appreciate Rocco and Catherine’s gift and the deep care for students that drives their generosity.”

Rocco Commisso has been a long-time supporter of the school and its soccer program. A 1971 graduate of the University’s industrial engineering program, Rocco Commisso was a member of Columbia’s 1967 freshman soccer squad that went undefeated and was captain of the 1970 varsity team that competed in the NCAA men’s soccer tournament. He received his MBA from Columbia in 1975. In 2006, Commisso’s son Joseph received his undergraduate engineering degree from Columbia, following in his father’s footsteps.

Also: Commisso Buys Italian Soccer Club

Rocco Commisso has long put an emphasis on education, immigrating to the U.S. from Calabria, Italy with his family when he was 12 years old, settling in the Bronx, New York. He attended Mount Saint Michael Academy in the Bronx, moving on to Columbia on a full scholarship. 

Also: Mediacom: 20 Years of Growth 

“The time I spent at Columbia was a truly life-changing experience for me,” Rocco Commisso said in a press release. “On the field, I was able to help bring a winning culture to the Lions’ soccer program. In the classroom, I was given the opportunity to earn a first-class engineering education that opened the doors to my future business career. However, without the financial support I received from Columbia, my ability to pursue an Ivy League education at one of the world’s finest universities would not have been possible. With this gift, Catherine and I hope to help students facing similar economic challenges realize their dream of graduating from Columbia. Ultimately, we want to ensure that the very best students, no matter their family’s circumstances, are able to attain a Columbia Engineering degree.” 

After earning his MBA from Columbia Business School in 1975, Commisso spent a decade on Wall Street with Chase Manhattan Bank and the Royal Bank of Canada. He worked at Cablevision Industries from 1986 to 1995 where he served as executive vice president, chief financial officer, and director and went on to found Mediacom in 1995 to acquire and reinvigorate cable systems in America’s underserved smaller communities. Today, Mediacom is the nation’s fifth largest cable provider and was recently recognized by Deloitte Private and the Wall Street Journal as a U.S. Best Managed Company for the second year in a row. The company also seeks to help close the digital divide by offering affordable broadband plans to low-income families. 

Also: Italian Soccer’s Secret Weapon  

To be eligible for the Commisso Scholarship, a student need meet one of the following requirements: to have lived or studied in Italy for at least a year; to be proficient in Italian or have grown up speaking Italian in the home; to have demonstrated leadership or involvement in the Italian community or in Italian cultural activities; to be a member of Columbia University’s men’s or women’s soccer team; or to be from the Bronx, with a preference for alumni of Mount Saint Michael Academy. 

“We truly appreciate the enormous generosity that Rocco has shown to our engineering students, and for his support over the years,” said Shih-Fu Chang, Dean of Columbia Engineering in a press release. “Making a Columbia education possible for deserving students, regardless of need, is a central value of our University and we are grateful for alumni like Rocco who continue to inspire all of us and give back in ways that will be truly transformational for our students.” 

Also: Mediacom Milestone: 100 Consecutive Quarters of Revenue Growth  

Commisso has generously given to the school and its soccer program over the years. More recently, he was Class Day speaker for Columbia Engineering graduates in 2021 and gave the annual Magill Lecture in 2020. He was also inducted into the Columbia University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2016 and is the namesake of the Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium.  

At a ceremony on June 9, the Columbia Engineering Alumni Association will be awarding him the Samuel Johnson Medal for Distinguished Achievement in a Field Beyond Engineering and Applied Science in recognition of his entrepreneurial achievements and exceptional leadership. Past Johnson Medal recipients include former head of Xerox Ursula Burns ('82SEAS) and Nobel Prize Winner Alvin Roth (’71SEAS).

“Working with Rocco has been a true privilege,” said Columbia University provost Mary C. Boyce in a press release. “His approach to leadership, philanthropy, and business epitomizes an engineering mindset, as well as a kind and generous spirit. His support will directly impact students while also enhancing the diversity that is a strength of our university.”  ■ 

More than a quarter-century after risking his life savings to start a cable company specifically focused on secondary and rural markets, and months after logging 100 straight quarters of revenue growth, Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso said he isn’t done yet. 

Mediacom finished the fourth quarter with $561.9 million in total revenue, a 2.2% increase over the prior year and the 100th consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth for the company Commisso started in 1995, an accomplishment it said only a handful of companies can claim. 

Mediacom was first envisioned in an eight-page paper Commisso wrote in March 1995 after leaving CableVision Industries — where he served as chief financial officer for about a decade — titled “A Window of Opportunity.” In it, he mapped out a vision for bringing cable to small markets. At the time, the chairman believed it was a venture that would last at least a couple of years. 

“We never expected to be at this level,” Commisso said. “We were going to get out after five years. But things evolved. The things that helped me the most were, one; the support I always had from the debt community, and two; that I turned a lot of things down so I could keep control of the company.”

Commisso bought his first cable system in Ridgecrest, California, in 1996 and today Mediacom has 2.6 million voice, video and data customers in 22 states. The mix of customers has changed dramatically, as most are broadband subscribers instead of video customers. But the idea is still to provide good service at a reasonable price and continue to invest in the business. 

Along the way, Mediacom went public, at $19 per share, in 2000; spent $2.125 billion in 2001 on systems mainly in Iowa formerly owned by AT&T; and went private again in 2010, after the markets lost faith in the cable business. 

“Twenty-five straight years of growth is a remarkable achievement for any business,” MoffettNathanson senior analyst Craig Moffett said. “It’s true that Rocco has been a brilliant financial engineer. But that sells him short. The real story is that he has also been a terrific operator. They’ve put up really nice numbers quarter after quarter. It’s a testament to a very well-run business.”

The largest acquisition was the one in 2001 from AT&T of systems in Iowa and three other states. That deal more than doubled Mediacom’s size, providing the clout to begin offering high-speed data in areas that hadn’t had it before and positioning it for an unprecedented period of growth. Since 2001, Mediacom has grown annual revenue from $885 million to more than $2.22 billion and annual adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) to more than $1 billion from $335 million.

But that was 20 years ago, and since then the industry has been turned on its ear. Commisso noted that in 2001, Mediacom had about 1.7 million primary service units (a combination of voice, video and data customers), including 1.5 million video customers and 100,000 high-speed internet subscribers. Today, broadband accounts for about 1.5 million subscribers and video customers number around 600,000, while total PSUs have grown to 2.6 million.

“Since 2001 we’ve lost over 1 million video customers,” Commisso said. “To lose all these customers and be able to triple your cash flow and grow your revenue every single quarter that we’ve been alive at Mediacom, in our opinion, is quite an accomplishment.”  

At the same time, Mediacom continues to invest in the business  — about $13 billion to fund acquisitions and to build and upgrade a national network that spans 600,000 fiber miles, Commisso said.

Still More to Do

“I am sure it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me well that I am not about to stop pushing forward,” Commisso said in a chairman’s letter issued shortly after the Q4 results. 

Commisso is most proud of his ability to keep Mediacom’s debt low. Today, the company’s leverage ratio stands at 1.2 times cash flow, among the lowest in the entire media and telecom sector. In February, Standard & Poor’s raised Mediacom’s investment-grade credit rating to BBB-plus, higher than much larger telecom rivals like AT&T and a feat that would have been unheard of in the sector when the company began. But he stressed that Mediacom will continue to invest — capex is averaging around $350 million per year — even as it moves to reduce debt.  

“We’re investing in our business, in our community, in our people, in our infrastructure to stay in front of the competitive threats that are coming around,” Commisso said. ■

With Q4 revenue of $561.2 million, a 2.2% increase over the prior year, Mediacom Communications marked its 100th consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth, entering a realm where only a handful of businesses have resided in modern business history, according to the company.

Adjusted Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization (OIBDA, a measure of cash flow) rose 8.2% in Q4 to $266.9 million. For the full year, revenue was up 4.3% to $2.2 billion and adjusted OIBDA increased 11.3% to $1 billion. 

While results were strong -- the increases came despite Mediacom losing 3,000 broadband customers in the period -- it was the milestone that prompted Rocco Commisso, one of the last remaining cable executives to lead the company he founded and continues to control to this day, to issue a letter to shareholders commemorating the event. In an interview, he said the last time he issued a letter to shareholders was when the company went public more than 20 years ago. 

Mediacom was formed in 1995 by Commisso, who after about 10 years as chief financial officer of CableVision Industries risked his life savings to start out on his own. He bought his first cable system in 1996 from Benchmark Cablevision in Ridgecrest, California, and now ranks as the fifth largest cable operator in the country, with about 2.6 million video, voice and data customers. 

While the cable business has had its ups and downs over the past three decades, Commisso and Mediacom have kept their eye on the ball, sidestepping for the most part the consolidation craze of the late 1990s and early 2000s, while focusing on investing in infrastructure and growing the business. 

Also: Mediacom: 20 Years of Growth 

Along the way Mediacom went public (at $19 per share in 2000, valuing the company at about 18 times cash flow); spent $2.125 billion on systems, mainly in Iowa, formerly owned by AT&T in 2001 and went private again in 2010 after the markets lost faith in the cable business in general. 

Through it all Commisso has kept his focus, expanding his network with an aggressive fiber buildout and bringing state-of-the-art high-speed services to rural communities. Mediacom deployed 1 Gigabit per second internet service throughout its footprint in 2017, staking a claim to be the first major cable company to do so. Mediacom said it has invested nearly $13 billion to fund acquisitions and to build and upgrade a national network that spans 600,000 fiber miles and serves 1.5 million customers across 22 states.   

Also: Mediacom: Standing Up for Small Cable’s Interests  

The AT&T deal in 2001 transformed Mediacom, more than doubling its size and raising its debt load to its highest level ever, about 8.3 times cash flow. Even at that level, Mediacom’s leverage was lower than some of its peers: Charter Communications at the time had a debt-to-cash-flow ratio of about 16 times. But the deal gave Mediacom the clout to begin offering high-speed data service in areas that hadn’t seen it before and positioned it for an unprecedented period of growth. Since buying the former AT&T systems in 2001, Mediacom has grown annual revenue from $885 million to more than $2.22 billion and upped annual adjusted OIBDA from $335 million to more than $1 billion.

Also: From Calabria to a Cable Chairmanship 

While that is an achievement in and of itself, Commisso is most proud of his ability to keep Mediacom’s debt low. Today the company’s leverage ratio stands at 1.2 times cash flow, among the lowest in the entire media and telecom sector. Earlier this month, Standard & Poor’s raised Mediacom’s investment grade credit rating to BBB+, higher than far-larger telecom rivals like AT&T and a feat that would have been unheard of in the sector when the company began. 

“I am pleased to say that the decision I made in 1995 to bet my life savings and my family’s future on serving neglected small communities in rural America has paid off, not only for me, but also for the thousands of employees and their families whose livelihoods depend on Mediacom’s continued success,” Commisso wrote in the letter to shareholders. “Since 2001, Mediacom has added more than 500 new positions to our highly skilled workforce, spent over $5 billion on employee payroll and made more than $500 million in 401(k) and medical benefit contributions.” ■

Cox Communications CEO Patrick Esser’s decision to retire at the end of the year — he will be succeeded by company veteran Mark Greatrex — was met throughout the industry with equal parts regret at losing yet another of cable’s old guard and good wishes that one of the good guys gets to end his decades-long cable story on his own terms. 

Esser got his start in the cable business in 1979 as a pole climber for a small cable operator in Waterloo, Iowa. According to an interview he did with this reporter back in 2013 after receiving the industry’s highest honor — the Vanguard Award for Distinguished Leadership — Esser packed up his belongings and drove 1,000 miles to Hampton Roads, Virginia, the site of Cox's latest system buy. The catalyst? One of his sales managers in the Waterloo system was a former Cox employee who couldn’t stop talking about what a great company it was to work for. The then 20-something Esser decided to see for himself.  

“I knocked on the door of the cable system and I got a job as the public-access director,” Esser said at the time. “Everything I heard about Cox was true from the moment I stepped on the property.”

Esser’s first job at Cox was officially director of programming at the Hampton Roads system, and he was part of the management team that pioneered Cox’s advertising sales division now known as Cox Media. In 1991 he was named corporate vice president of advertising sales, rising to vice president of operations for Cox’s Western Division in 1999. A  year later he was promoted to senior vice president of operations and in 2004, Esser was promoted to executive vice president and chief operating officer.

In 2006, Esser was tapped to succeed CEO James Robbins, who had said earlier that he would retire that year. Robbins, who died in 2007,  said in a July 2005 interview he couldn’t have hoped for a better person to take the reins.

“Pat has absolutely been the home-run selection,” Robbins said in that July 2005 interview. 

Esser didn’t just have an impact on his own company. While he spearheaded and pushed along efforts to diversify Cox’s workforce and bring the company into the information age, he also enthusiastically waved the cable banner wherever he went. Throughout the years he served as chairman of  NCTA: The Internet & Television Association;  C-SPAN; CableLabs; adviser to the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) and on the national Board of Governors of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. 

“Pat Esser’s contribution to our industry has been invaluable,” said NCTA: The Internet and Television Association CEO Michael Powell in a statement. “He’s a true cable success story, rising through the ranks from local executive to company CEO. Throughout, he has represented the heart and soul of our industry, always committed first to the welfare of Cox customers and employees.”

Through his journey throughout the industry, Esser has worked closely with other cable and telecom CEOs. He serves on C-SPAN’s board with Charter Communications chairman and CEO Tom Rutledge and has served with Mediacom Communications founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso on the C-SPAN and NCTA boards. 

“Pat’s had a great career starting at entry level and rising to the top,” Rutledge said in a statement. “I’ve enjoyed working aside him on Industry efforts at NCTA and CableLabs.  Pat’s contribution to the industry is unmatched.  I have been personally lucky to work with Pat in an industry where long term business success has kept us on the same team for decades.  It’s been a pleasure.”

National Cable Television Cooperative CEO Lou Borrelli has known Esser for years, dating back to their early days in cable. Borrelli has logged 43 years in the cable business, beginning with UA-Columbia Cablevision in 1978. Borrelli also was a founding partner of Marcus Cable in 1986. 

"I had the good fortune to meet Pat back when our cable careers were getting off the ground," Borrelli said in a statement. "His energy was infectious and his word was his bond. Through numerous CTAM collaborations, Pat never ran out of ideas and always was up to the challenge. His track record at Cox is a testament to his work ethic and his ethics in business and life. Good luck and godspeed."

Esser also helped drive Cox forward as the industry changed, building on its decades-long reputation as the “gold standard” for the cable industry and unafraid to invest in new businesses like broadband.

“During Pat’s 15 years at the helm, Cox Communications became the gold standard of U.S. telecom companies,” Commisso said in a statement. “Through his many operational successes at Cox and his leadership within NCTA, Pat motivated us all to make the significant private investments necessary to turn our collective broadband networks into America’s most powerful technology platform.   I thank him for his tremendous contributions to our industry and wish Pat and his family all the best in the years ahead.” 

Powell also pointed to Esser’s history as a champion of the NCTA, leading its board of directors and trade show several times, and his commitment to diversity, both at Cox and throughout the industry. 

“Pat has been a leader and innovator in cable marketing; a visionary in cable operations and technology; an ally and champion for diversity, equity, and inclusion; and a thoughtful, forward-looking President & CEO of his company,” Powell continued. “As one of our industry’s most trusted and authentic voices, Pat has immense credibility with policy makers. He has helped provide a strong presence for our industry here in Washington and always has committed Cox Communications to the public good. I will miss Pat enormously as a friend, mentor, and advisor on all of our critical issues. We wish only the very best for him in his next chapter. We’re looking forward to working with Mark Greatrex, another formidable presence in our industry who will be a positive force as we move into the future.”

Esser has served as chairman of C-SPAN for about two years but has been a member of the organization since 2005. The Cox chief has also been a regular video contributor, participating in trade show forums broadcast on the channel ranging from the future of the cable business to Open Internet and consolidation. 

“You can't ask for a better chairman than Pat Esser,” C-SPAN said in a statement. “He is passionate about C-SPAN's mission and shares that enthusiasm throughout Cox. Over the past two years, he has been readily available with strategic guidance and encouragement as our network navigates a changing marketplace and we are confident we can continue to call on his wise counsel into the future.”

In 2006, Cox was first named in DiversityInc's listing of the Top 50 Companies for Diversity and in 2020, reached its highest ranking at No.11. Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT) regularly recognizes Cox among the top operators for women.

"Pat Esser is an industry legend — 15 years of exemplary leadership at the helm of Cox and countless beneficiaries of his dedication to the industry and its DEI efforts,” Maria E. Brennan, WICT President & CEO, said in a statement. “We likewise congratulate Pat’s accomplished successor at Cox, Mark Greatrex, and look forward to continuing our strong partnership with the Cox leadership team."

Broadband customers rose by about 16,000 in the first quarter at Mediacom Communications, slightly behind last year’s torrid pace, but enough to drive double-digit cash flow growth at the mid-sized cable operator in the period.

Those broadband additions led to a 15.8% increase in overall high-speed data revenue to $258.7 million, which drove adjusted OIBDA (Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization, a measure of cash flow) up 15.2% for the company. Overall revenue was $547.5 million, up 5.8% from the prior year.

Also Read: Mediacom Named Among Best Managed Private U.S. Companies 

Video subscribers declined by 17,000 in the period, the same number the company lost in the prior year. Phone subscribers fell by 12,000 in Q1, compared to a loss of about 5,000 in the same period in 2020.  

“The first quarter of 2021 marked another exceptional operating period for Mediacom, as we registered our third straight quarter of industry-leading Adjusted OIBDA growth with a 15.2% increase from the prior year period and extended our streak of year-over-year revenue growth to 97 consecutive quarters,” chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso said in a press release. “Notably, despite Mediacom becoming a meaningful taxpayer in 2021, we generated $129.5 million of after-tax free cash flow, and our net debt leverage declined to an all-time low of 1.67x.”

It’s pretty rare when a team owner gets called out -- positively -- when a TV sports rights deal is announced by a league and a programmer, but that’s what happened in ViacomCBS’s three-year deal for exclusive U.S. rights to stream games from Italian soccer league Serie A. But then again, Rocco Commisso isn’t just any team owner.

ViacomCBS made good on its promise to double down on soccer rights on March 25, agreeing to a three-year deal to carry the league on its fledgling streaming service Paramount Plus as well as CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network. While the terms of the deal weren’t announced, reports have put the value at about $200 million over the three years.

In announcing the deal there were the usual niceties -- both sides praised each other’s foresight in agreeing to the transaction -- but further down in the release, Serie A CEO Luigi De Siervo personally thanked the league’s American club owners, specifically pointing out Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso, who also owns the ACF Fiorentina team, for his help in landing the agreement. 

“Today it is not a point of arrival, but rather the beginning of a process of investments in human resources and editorial contents to support the continued growth of Serie A in the North America territory,” De Siervo said in the release. “This is the result of the work of the last 18 months and of the increasing number of American owners who have decided to invest in our teams. Finally, I would like to thank the President of Fiorentina Rocco Commisso for his important contribution to achieve this agreement.”

Rights Cost Went Up 30%

The deal that Paramount Plus signed was a 30% increase over the league’s last TV contract with ESPN Plus. ESPN was a late round bidder along with one other unnamed company,  but ultimately decided that the price was little too rich for its tastes.

ViacomCBS has been ultra-aggressive in snapping up soccer rights. In addition to the Serie A deal, the programmer has signed rights deals with the UEFA Champions League, Europa League, next season’s Europa Conference League, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), Brasileiro Série A and Liga Profesional de Fútbol (the top leagues in both Brazil and Argentina), and various Concacaf matches. 

At ViacomCBS’s Feb. 24 Investor Day, CBS Entertainment chief George Cheeks said the programmer was “doubling down” on soccer rights, adding the sport presented the best opportunity to grab young eyeballs for both the linear and streaming networks.

“As we look to the future, we are making soccer a core pillar of sports exclusively available on Paramount Plus,” Cheeks said at the Investor Day. 

According to reports, Paramount had initially bid around $142 million for the rights, but bumped up that offer considerably in later rounds. 

While those reports didn’t offer an explanation for the increased offer, probably just chalking it up to normal bidding dynamics, Commisso may have provided a subtle nudge.

As the head of the fifth largest cable operator in the U.S., Mediacom obviously has a long-time professional relationship with Paramount Plus parent ViacomCBS and its CEO Bob Bakish. But Commisso and Bakish’s connection goes a little bit deeper. Both are graduates of Columbia University, and both left that Ivy League institution with degrees in industrial engineering and MBAs.   

“Rocco and I have enjoyed a long and productive professional relationship,” Bakish said in an email message.  “We look forward to working with Serie A and enhancing our strong lineup of live soccer coverage on Paramount+.” 

Commisso, who was born in Calabria, Italy and came to the U.S. with his family when he was 12 years old, is a huge soccer fan: he was co-captain of his alma mater’s men’s soccer squad in 1970, helping lead the school to compete in its first NCAA men’s soccer tournament that year. The Mediacom founder has been a huge booster of Columbia University soccer, donating millions of dollars to the school for its stadium and soccer programs. In 2017, Commisso dipped his toe into club ownership, buying the North American Soccer League’s (NASL) New York Cosmos. In 2019 he purchased ACF Fiorentina. ACF Fiorentina currently is ranked 14th out of 20 teams in Serie A. The Cosmos have been on pause since the COVID-19 outbreak. 

In an interview, Commisso said he imparted some of his soccer knowledge to Bakish, who he said is “a great guy” and a savvy negotiator in his own right. Talks for the U.S. rights to Serie A lasted about 18 months and  involved several parties. 

“We had a discussion,” Commisso said, adding that the conversation was mainly around the state of Italian soccer. “I was rooting for him to win it. Did he come up with every single dollar that I thought was the right ask? No. Was he better than everybody else? Yes. It would be fair to say that through my involvement, one: he got the bid and two: he increased the bid.”

Commisso has been pretty generous with his knowledge of the soccer game. He counseled Parma owner Kyle Krause, CEO of Krause Group, when he was considering buying the Parma team. Krause Group is based in Des Moines, Iowa, also one of Mediacom’s largest markets, and owns Italian wineries and hospitality businesses, as well as real estate and more than 400 gas station/convenience stores in the Midwest. Krause bought the Parma team in 2020. 

“He picked my brain and I helped him make his mind up,” Commisso said. 

Serie A is considered one of the “Big Five'' leagues in European football: The English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga and France’s Ligue 1 are the others. So landing the U.S. rights is a bit of a coup for Paramount. It doesn’t hurt that one of the most recognizable stars in soccerdom, Cristiano Ronaldo, plays for Turin-based Juventus, the 2019-20 Serie A champion.  

Matches Due Mostly On Paramount Plus

ViacomCBS hasn’t said yet how it will parse the games between the streaming and linear services. But it’s probably a good bet that the Ronaldo connection will be played up when it starts airing Serie A games in August. There are a lot of games to watch, which should only raise the profile of the league in general. Paramount Plus, the enlarged former CBS All Access, has the rights to air 400 matches each year -- 388 Serie A games, 25 Coppa Italia matches and the Supercoppa Italiana match (where the winners of Serie A and Coppa Italia meet in a what is akin to the Italian soccer Super Bowl) -- with select matches to be televised on CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network. 

But whatever the ultimate lineup, Commisso said the exposure could only be good for Italian soccer. 

“In Italy, they give some of the bigger teams preferential treatment when there are multiple games during the day,” Commisso said. “Not always but for the most part, they’ll make the last game the Game of the Week. We have games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I’m sure they [Paramount] will utilize Ronaldo. If I were them I would do the same thing.”

Commisso said in Italian soccer, TV money isn’t split evenly among teams -- bigger teams get bigger shares -- but the additional cash will help the smaller clubs get better players and improve facilities. Adding to the coffers is the sale of Italian TV rights to the league, which went to streaming sports service DAZN for about €2.5 billion ($2.95 billion) over three years. DAZN bested Comcast-owned Sky, which had owned Serie A rights in Italy since 2003. Sky, according to reports, agreed to pay about €70 million ($82 million) for non-exclusive rights for a smaller package of games. 

Commisso also is encouraged by the growing number of American owners in Italian soccer. Today there are five clubs owned by Americans in the 20-team league: A.C. Milan, A.S. Roma, A.C.F. Fiorentina, Parma and Spezia Calcio. A sixth club, Bologna F.C., is owned by a Canadian.

That influx of American ownership has occurred only recently. In 2017, only one club, Roma, was U.S.-owned. Commisso said the new blood has been good for the league, bringing in a fresh perspective as well as money. Italian soccer, he added, has been held back by the condition of its stadiums, which are generally owned by the towns and cities the clubs play in and are leased back to the teams. But that means improvements have been few and far between. Commisso said the stadium where his club plays, Stadio Artemio Franchi, was first opened in 1931. And he believes as other Italian owners look to sell their clubs in the future, American businessmen should take advantage of the opportunity. Juventus's 10-year-old Allianz Stadium is one of the unusual club-owned arenas.

“I think there are going to be other sales taking place in the next 12 months,” Commisso said. “Is it going to be Americans? I can't say that for sure. But the fact that you have five American owners is changing things. We bring a new way of looking at things, some people don’t like it, and we have a big push to improve the infrastructure. We all want to get things done on the infrastructure side.”

Commisso himself is in the throes of building a new state-of-the-art sports complex near Stadio Artemio Franchi, to be called Viola Park, an €85 million ($99.6 million) project that would include training facilities and fields for men's and women's senior and youth soccer teams.  The project, which began construction earlier this year, has recently hit some regulatory snags.

Still, Commisso is confident that he will eventually get the project through.

“I’m a tough guy when it comes to most things,” Commisso said. “I’m not doing this to make money, I’m doing this to give back to soccer what soccer has done for me and to give back to my native Italy. It’s very hard for other people to understand that, but it is a fact.” 

Revenue rose 6.9% to $549.4 million and cash flow was up 16.3% to $246.8 million at Mediacom Communications in Q4, spurred by big increases in broadband customers during the pandemic.

Q4 marked Mediacom’s 96th consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth. The 16.3% rise in adjusted Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization (OIBDA, a measure of cash flow) and a 24% bump in free cash flow to $151 million for the period were both all-time records for the company. For the full year, revenue was up 4.9% to $2.1 billion and adjusted OIBDA increased 11.2% to $898.8 million, another record.

Driving that performance was Mediacom’s broadband service, which added 110,000 customers in 2020, nearly twice the 64,000 it added in 2019. For the quarter, broadband subscribers rose by 13,000 compared to a gain of 12,000 in Q4 2019.

Broadband revenue rose by 14.7% to $249.8 million in Q4 and by 12.3% for the year to $944 million. At the same time, video customers declined by 20,000 in Q4 (compared to a loss of 19,000 in 2019) and by 67,000 in 2020, compared to a loss of 66,000 in the prior year. 

“I am proud to announce record-breaking 2020 results, a truly exceptional performance in the face of the economic and operating challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic,” Mediacom chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso said in a press release. “During these very difficult and trying times, Mediacom’s hard-working frontline employees have been critical to the mission of delivering fast and reliable broadband connections to our residential customers and their families, as well as to our commercial clients.” 

As the COVID-19 pandemic has decimated company balance sheets and forced layoffs to deal with the economic malaise, Mediacom Communications founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso assured his more than 4,500 employees that they will keep their jobs at least through May 31, when some pundits believe the worst of the pandemic will be over.

In a letter to employees, Commisso said that he has been “amazed and inspired” by their resiliency and dedication as they continue to make sure customers stay connected. And he assured workers that although other companies have had to endure serious financial problems during the outbreak, Mediacom is stable.

Other companies, battered by the economic downturn fueled by the pandemic, have furloughed employees -- mostly those in customer-facing positions -- to cope with lost business. On Thursday, The Walt Disney Co. said it would furlough non-essential workers beginning April 19. Overall, the number of unemployment insurance claims doubled to a record 6.6 million for the week of March 28 according to the U.S. Dept. of Labor.

Related: Commisso, ACF Fiorentina Surpass Coronavirus Fundraising Goal

“In the 25 years since I founded Mediacom, we have never resorted to laying off our employees, even during the worst economic downturns,” Commisso wrote. “We have no plans to start now as our belief has always been that if our employees take care of our customers and our communities, we will take care of them.

“I want to assure all 4,500 of our employees that Mediacom intends to continue to provide them with gainful employment, pay and benefits through at least May 31, 2020,” he continued. “By that time, we hope this pandemic will be over and our business and lives will return to normal.”

Here’s the full text of the statement:

“As our nation’s battle against the Coronavirus intensifies, I continue to be amazed and inspired by the courage and resiliency of the Mediacom Family. From our engineers, technicians and customer care representatives to our warehouse personnel, everyone is working tirelessly to keep our network running and to make sure the customers we serve stay connected.

“While this health crisis has caused serious financial problems for thousands of businesses across the United States and forced millions of Americans into the unemployment line, I want all Mediacom employees to know that our company is stable both operationally and financially.

“In the 25 years since I founded Mediacom, we have never resorted to laying off our employees, even during the worst economic downturns. We have no plans to start now as our belief has always been that if our employees take care of our customers and our communities, we will take care of them.”

“I want to assure all 4,500 of our employees that Mediacom intends to continue to provide them with gainful employment, pay and benefits through at least May 31, 2020. By that time, we hope this pandemic will be over and our business and lives will return to normal.”

A Go Fund Me project started by Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso to help hospitals in Florence, Italy buy needed medical equipment and supplies to fight COVID-19, has surpassed its goal and continues to raise money to help that area.

Commisso, who also owns Florence soccer team ACF Fiorentina, started the Go Fund Me (Forza e Cuore, or “Strength and Heart) on March 17 to help hospitals in and around the Florence area to buy needed supplies. Italy has been hit hard by the coronavirus, with more than 59,000 cases and nearly 5,500 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. 

Forza e Cuore had set a goal of raising €500,000 for the hospitals, but surpassed that goal less than 72 hours after it began. In an interview Friday (March 20), Commisso said he would keep the fundraiser going as long as possible to help the area. As of Monday, March 23, the effort has raised €547,482 ($591,833) from 1,600 donors, according to the Go Fund Me site. 

In a statement Monday, Commisso and ACF Fiorentina said the fundraising effort will continue for as long as hospitals need help, equipment and economic assistance to fight the virus.

“Our hope is that as many people as possible continue to donate – because we’ll only win this battle if we stay together!,” Commisso and the team said in the statement. “Our hope is that as many people as possible continue to donate – because we’ll only win this battle if we stay together!”

In an interview, Commisso said that many donors to Forza e Cuore have been American companies both inside and outside of the cable industry.

“I want to thank those people in America within the industry and outside the industry doing their best by whatever means and whatever way necessary to help the people of Italy and specifically the people of Florence,” Commisso said. 

Mediacom Communications said it has completed the redemption of the entire balance of the $50 million outstanding principal amount of its senior notes due 2021. With the retirement of its public debt, Mediacom is no longer obligated to file quarterly financial statements publicly.

“I am proud to announce the repayment of Mediacom’s last remaining bonds,” Mediacom founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso said in a press release. “Reaching this milestone is a testament to the investment grade quality of Mediacom’s financial position, highlighted by a total debt leverage ratio well below 3x and historically low average borrowing costs of 3.25%. Naturally, none of this would be possible without the hard work and dedication of Mediacom’s 4,500 employees, who have consistently produced excellent results, evidenced by the unique accomplishment of 91 consecutive quarters of year-over-year revenue growth.”

Related: Rocco Wants Privacy 

Mediacom, founded in 1995, filed for an initial public offering in 2000 and was publicly traded for more than a decade. In 2011, the company went private, claiming the public markets weren’t properly valuing cable operators.  Although it was no longer publicly traded, the company did have public debt, which required it to make quarterly filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Once that debt is retired, that requirement no longer holds.

Related: Rocco Seals the Deal 

“I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to our long-term bondholders for their support and trust over my 33 years of raising debt capital in the ‘non-investment grade’ markets,” Commisso continued. “I am gratified to have returned the favor by delivering an unblemished credit performance over the decades. Equally important, our banks and institutional term loan investors under the Company’s existing credit facilities continue to benefit from solid asset coverage, ample levels of liquidity and Mediacom’s robust free cash flow generation.”

Mediacom last filed quarterly results in  October -- its Q3 financials -- and reported revenue growth of 3.5% and cash flow growth of nearly 8%. The company said it may continue to issue quarterly press releases, but it is not required to do so.   

Mediacom Communications said it will become the official jersey sponsor of Italian soccer club ACF Fiorentina, a move that will help the team, purchased earlier this year by Mediacom founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso, compete.

Commisso purchased the club in June. He also owns the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League.  ACF Fiorentina, based in Florence, Italy and known by fans as “La Viola” for the violet color of its uniforms, has had some past success, winning the Italian Cup in 2001. The team finished 16th in Serie A last season.

According to reports, the club did not have a jersey sponsor last season. Mediacom had sponsored shirts for the club during the preseason. Terms of the most recent deal were not disclosed.

In a press release, Mediacom said the sponsorship will provide “considerable funds to help the Florence-based club compete in the world of soccer with its very stringent rules.”

Europe’s governing soccer body, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), instituted Financial Fair Play regulations in the 2011-12 season which broadly tied the amount of money a club could spend on the income it generated over a three year period.

“I believe greatly in the image potential of Florence and Fiorentina,” Commisso said in a press release. “This sponsorship will ensure the Fiorentina brand enjoys not just national but also international visibility thanks to Mediacom. I am convinced that strengthening the ties between Mediacom and Fiorentina is essential to obtain reciprocal benefits and help both companies achieve significant targets.”

Mediacom Communications founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso was one of 38 people honored on July 4 as a Carnegie Corp. “Great Immigrant, Great American” an annual program that highlights the contributions made to American culture by naturalized citizens.

Commisso, who came to the U.S. from Calabria, Italy, when he was 12 years old, founded Mediacom in 1995 and grew it into the fifth largest cable company in the country. A graduate of Columbia University, Commisso has given extensively to educational and other concerns.

Commisso, owner of the New York Cosmos NASL soccer club, also is reportedly in negotiations with Chinese businessman Li Yonghong to purchase a controlling interest in Italy's AC Milan soccer club. Commisso is in competition for the team with the Ricketts family -- owner of Major League Baseball's Chicago Cubs -- who have also expressed an interest.   

Related: From Calabria to a Cable Chairmanship 

Among Commisso’s fellow honorees were Nobel Prize winners Joachim Frank and Shuji Nakamura; Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi; actor Kumail Nanjiani; New York State Supreme Court Justice, District 11 Carmen R. Velasquez; singer/songwriter Regina Spektor; and author Imbolo Mbue. 

[embed]https://twitter.com/MediacomCable/status/1014893921376309248[/embed]

“Andrew Carnegie understood that immigrants come here to be a part of America, not apart from America” Carnegie Corp. of New York president Vartan Gregorian said in a statement. “In their faith, their love of family, and their patriotism for their adopted land, these Great Immigrants have done so much — and will do so much more in the future. For this, and for all their contributions, we respect, admire, and celebrate them.”

Mediacom Communications founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso joined an elite club Tuesday, becoming one of 22 new entrants to the Forbes magazine list of the 400 richest Americans.

Commisso, who founded Mediacom in 1995, placed a very respectable No. 150 overall on the list, which was again peppered with internet billionaires and media moguls. Microsoft founder Bill Gates was No. 1 on the list for the 24th consecutive year, with a total net worth of $89 billion, up $8 billion from the prior year. Amazon chief Jeff Bezos was No. 2, worth $81.5 billion.

Commisso, estimated to be worth $4.5 billion, is the lone cable operator in Forbes's new class of entrepreneurs. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings (No. 359, $2.2 billion) was also among the new entrants.

But the overall list had more than its share of media chieftains of much larger companies, like Dish Network chairman and CEO Charlie Ergen (No. 30, $15.8 billion); 21st Century Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch (No. 39, $12 billion); Liberty Media's John Malone (No. 56, $8.2 billion); Viacom executive chairman Summer Redstone (No. 115, $5.1 billion) and Cablevision founder Charles Dolan (No. 118, $5 billion).

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Commisso has grown Mediacom from a single cable system in California to the fifth largest operator in the country, with more than 800,000 video subscribers. He has supported several educational causes, and has been a generous backer of his alma mater Columbia University, which named its soccer field after him in 2013. In January, Commisso purchased the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League, and has been an avid fan and supporter of U.S. soccer. He was part of the anti-trust suit filed against U.S. soccer’s governing body, the United States Soccer Federation – last month.

But according to the Forbes article, Commisso's mind continues to be focused on Mediacom.

"All the guys that are on the Forbes 400, we're married to our businesses,” Commisso told the magazine.

Two months after being purchased by cable veteran Rocco Commisso, the New York Cosmos have secured a regional TV deal for their spring games, which will be shown on New York independent station WPIX and MSG Networks.

The club’s NASL home opener against Miami FC at MCU Park on April 1 will be broadcast on Tribune Media’s flagship New York station, WPIX, Channel 11. According to the team, the game marks the first time the Cosmos will play live on broadcast television in over 30 years.  

MSG Networks will kick off their Cosmos coverage on April 8, with a match against Miami FC at FIU Stadium in Miami.  MSG Networks will carry a total of 13 of the club’s games during the spring season.

RELATED: U.K.-based Eleven Sports buys One World Sports assets

"Television is a critically important piece to building and sustaining a successful professional sports brand,” said Cosmos’ Chief Operating Officer Erik Stover in a statement. “With WPIX and MSG, we have found two exceptional partners to help bring the fun and excitement of Cosmos’ games to millions of homes in the New York metropolitan area.”

In addition to the regional coverage on WPIX and MSG Networks, a number of Cosmos games will be available through the national television deal expected to be announced by the NASL before the spring season starts later in March.  The Cosmos local television schedule for the fall season will be announced later in the year.  

Cosmos games had originally been shown on pay TV network One World Sports – its former owner was a partner in the firm that owns the network. One World Sports has fallen on hard times recently, but is expected to announce a deal with U.K. sports network Eleven Sports later in the week.

Commisso, the founder, chairman and CEO of Mediacom Communications, agreed to purchase the Cosmos in January. Since buying the team, Commisso has managed to secure its leadership, pay back wages to players and front office personnel and find a new home for the club – Brooklyn’s MCU Park. He had said in the past that striking a TV deal was on the agenda, but was a lower priority. With those major hurdles cleared, the time was ripe to strike a TV agreement.

"MSG Networks is proud to be the regional home of Cosmos soccer,” said MSG Network’s Vice President of Content Distribution and Affiliate Partnerships Armando Polanco in a statement. "It's a new era for the legendary American club and we are excited to watch the Cosmos defend their NASL title."

The New York Cosmos soccer team, now principally owned by Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso, has a new home stadium -- MCU Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. -- and will open the North American Soccer League season there on April 1, the team said today.

The Cosmos, rescued by Commisso's acquisition from dire financial straits, had been looking for a new place to play, preferably somewhere in New York City. MCU Park, near the Coney Island boardwalk, where a minor league affiliate of the New York Mets plays baseball, is that place and it will be the team's home field for 16 regular season games.

“When I took control of the club on January 10th, our immediate priorities were to stabilize the NASL, re-hire the Cosmos front office personnel and coaching staff, rebuild our team roster and relocate to a fan friendly venue within the five boroughs,” Cosmos chairman Commisso said in a team press release. “In less than a month, we have achieved those objectives, including re-signing many of the starters from our 2016 Championship Team. During the Cosmos’ inaugural season in 1971, the team played at Yankee Stadium. With our move to MCU Park in Brooklyn, we are not only able to offer fans easy access to a one-of-a-kind entertainment experience, but we are also reconnecting the club to its original New York City roots. Adding the excitement of Cosmos’ games to Coney Island’s already vibrant atmosphere will be a win-win for our club and soccer enthusiasts throughout the metropolitan area.”

The team last played its home games at a stadium on the campus of Hofstra University on Long Island.

The team's release had quotes from city luminaries including Mayor Bill de Blasio and from New York Mets COO Jeff Wilpon, who said: "We are thrilled to showcase MCU Park as a multi-purpose venue and welcome the Cosmos, a storied franchise in American soccer history. All New York area soccer fans will enjoy watching the Cosmos make their mark in Brooklyn."

Yankee Stadium now is the home of New York City FC of Major League Soccer.

The Cosmos also said season-ticket packages go on sale on Friday, Feb. 3.

Securing a new TV deal for the New York Cosmos soccer club isn’t the first priority for its new owner, Mediacom Communications founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso, but it is definitely on the agenda.

The Cosmos, one of the better-known names in the second-tier North American Soccer League, had been tied to a rights deal with One World Sports, which has struggled on its own and is currently seeking a buyer. Commisso’s deal to acquire the Cosmos from Sela Sports and former Cosmos chairman Seamus O’Brien does not involve One World Sports.

The Mediacom chairman is now the majority owner — O’Brien retains a minority interest in the club — of the soccer team that once held court for the biggest names in the sport. Under another former media mogul, the late Warner Communications chairman Steve Ross, the Cosmos fielded teams in the 1970s with such icons as Pelé, Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto.

A lifelong soccer fan — he said during a conference call announcing the deal that he turned down a chance to join the group that purchased Italian soccer club A.S. Roma in 2011 out of loyalty to rival Juventus, his boyhood favorite team — Commisso pledged to help rebuild the Cosmos, starting with paying back wages to players and front office staff. The TV deals will come later.

“It’s crucial long-term; it’s not crucial today,” Commisso said of securing a new TV deal. “I have lots of contacts out there. It’s on the agenda to deal with the broadcasting rights and the cable rights.”

REBUILD EFFORT

Of more urgent importance are matters like putting the team back together after players were allowed to find other places to play because the Cosmos’s finances were so dire before Commisso (hailed as a savior on the call by team chief operating officer Erik Stover) stepped in. The team has only three players under contract at the moment. The Cosmos also lack a home stadium, though Commisso said the aim is to find a stadium within New York City’s five boroughs.

The NASL already has a rights deal with beIN Sports and CBS Sports Network to carry games, but some critics have said the Cosmos separate deal with OWS has hurt viewership. The fledgling NASL, a Division II league under top-tier Major League Soccer, has lost clubs over the years and has struggled to find an audience.

Currently, the NASL has contracted from 12 teams to eight, a number that Commisso hopes to grow. “I think I am getting into this situation with my eyes open,”he said on the call. “I think I bring my entrepreneurial experience, my resources, the connections I have worldwide with the financial community and the media community.”

GOAL: GROW THE LEAGUE

One of the conditions of Commisso’s deal was that the U.S. Soccer Federation affirm the NASL’s Division II status, which the governing body did on Jan. 6. The USSF also moved the third-tier United Soccer League (from which the NASL sprung in 2011) to Division II, which could fuel speculation about a future merger. The USL currently has about 30 teams.

Both leagues were granted provisional status, meaning they still have to meet requirements around the number of teams (at least 12 by the sixth year of operation), locations (at least 75% in major metro areas) and minimum financial guidelines for team owners. While USSF has granted waivers for the leagues in the past, it said it would work with NASL and USL to meet the necessary criteria.

According to reports, Division II status brings public relations and marketing benefits from the perception that play is more competitive, which also could lead to better TV deals and bigger crowds. Division-two teams also get to appear later in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, a single-elimination tournament that includes teams from all three divisions, including MLS, as well as from amateur leagues.

Mediacom Communications founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso pledged to right the New York Cosmos soccer club in a press conference call Tuesday, starting off by paying back wages to players and front office staff and culminating in rebuilding the ailing team.

“We found our savior,” said Cosmos chief operating officer Erik Stover, speaking of Commisso on the conference call. “A savior for this club and I believe very strongly a savior that has helped the North American Soccer League going. A leader that can help the league grow and help this club grow.”

Commisso agreed to buy the club from Sela Sports and former chairman Seamus O’Brien. The deal was done at a breakneck pace – at the conference Commisso said he was first contacted by the Cosmos on the Friday before Christmas at 10 a.m.; by 1 p.m. the next day they had hammered out the basics of a deal. The biggest holdup was getting the U.S. Soccer Federation to assure that the league the Cosmos play in  -- the North American Soccer League – would continue as a Division II entity.  With its second tier status intact, Commisso said the deal was reached quickly.

The Mediacom chairman is now the majority owner – O’Brien retains a minority interest in the club – of the soccer team that once held court for the biggest names in the sport. Under another former media mogul – the late Warner Communications chairman Steve Ross – the Cosmos fielded teams in the 1970s with such icons as Pele, Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto.

Commisso started off the press conference on a somber note, offering condolences to the family of former Cosmos player Roberto Cabanas, who died at age 55 of a heart attack Monday. Cabanas had played for the Cosmos for five seasons beginning in 1980 and was the second highest scorer in team history.

Commisso got right back to business on the conference call, adding that he is committed to the team’s success. Although terms of the deal were not disclosed, Commisso added that he is willing to do what it takes to filed a successful team.

“I think I am getting into this situation with my eyes open,” Commisso said on the call. “I think I bring my entrepreneurial experience, my resources, the connections I have worldwide with the financial community and the media community.”

His first priority will be to pay back wages to players and front office personnel. That could happen as early as Thursday, Stover said on the conference call. Commisso added that his next priority will be to secure key employees and management for the team, including Stover and head coach Giovanni Savarese, in whom Commisso said he has complete confidence.

While Savarese will be tasked with rebuilding the player roster – the Cosmos have lost six players, including 2016 league MVP Juan Arango – that may not be as difficult as it seems. The Cosmos won the NASL Soccer Bowl in 2016 but the club expected the 36-year old Arango to play just another year. And, Yohandry Orozco, another top player last year, was mainly there to get fit and showcase his talents for other clubs.

Commisso’s other task will be finding a venue for the team to play. The Cosmos lost their right to play at Hofstra University’s Shuart Stadium and has been talking to other colleges – including Commisso’s alma mater Columbia University – and minor league baseball’s Brooklyn Cyclones for use of its MCU Park in Coney Island. Whatever the decision – and it has to be made fairly quickly as the regular season starts on April 1 – Commisso said the goal is to have the team play within the five boroughs of New York City.

With the deal the team’s TV rights, formerly locked up with One World Sports, revert back to the Cosmos. That would free the team to negotiate with other networks – like BeIN Sports and CBS Sports which already carry other NASL contests. But Commisso said while important, securing a TV deal is not an immediate priority.

“It’s crucial long-term, it’s not crucial today” Commisso said. “I have lots of contacts out there. It’s on the agenda to deal with the broadcasting rights and the cable rights.”

Mediacom chairman, CEO and founder Rocco Commisso can now add sports mogul to his lengthy resume, with the purchase of North American Soccer League champion the New York Cosmos.

Commisso will be chairman of the club as well as its majority shareholder. Speculation regarding his involvement with the team has been rampant for days.

Commisso is buying the team from Sela Sports and Cosmos chairman Seamus O’Brien. According to reports, O’Brien is expected to stay on as a minority owner.

The Cosmos are one of the best-known names in the NASL, and had a storied run in the 1970s with iconic players like Pele, Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberto. In recent years, the team has been relegated to the second tier NASL.

“Like so many of our fantastic fans, I have followed the Cosmos since the fabulous days of Pelé, Chinaglia, Alberto, and Beckenbauer,” Commisso said in a statement. “With my deep roots in the New York City area as a former player, youth coach, and proud supporter of the Columbia University soccer program, I look forward to building on the rich history of America’s most iconic soccer club.”

Commisso, a life-long soccer fan and a star player in college – he was co-captain of the Columbia University squad in 1970 – should bring stability and needed funds to the club.

The Cosmos have lost six of their top players to other teams in recent months – including 2016 NASL MVP Juan Arango – and have reportedly lost as much as $30 million over the years.

As defending champions of the NASL, the Cosmos will return to the field in 2017 with head coach Giovanni Savarese at the helm.

“Cosmos fans deserve a world class experience,” said Savarese in a statement. “I am thrilled Rocco is giving me the opportunity to continue as head coach to pursue our fourth championship in five years.”

The Cosmos are expected to officially unveil the new ownership at a teleconference at 11:30 a.m. today.  

“We’ve worked hard to secure a positive future for the club and Rocco is the perfect person to lead the continued renaissance,” O’Brien said in a statement. “He is not only extremely knowledgeable about the beautiful game as it is played worldwide, but brings extensive entrepreneurial experience in the media and communications business to the organization.”

Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso was inducted into Columbia University’s Athletics Hall of Fame Thursday night, for his lifetime commitment to Columbia Althletics, specifically its soccer program.

Commisso, a Columbia graduate, was honored at a black-tie gala Thursday night at the Low Library on the University’s Morningside Campus.

The Hall of Fame was founded to honor those individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of intercollegiate athletics and who have helped bring recognition, distinction and excellence to Columbia University. With his induction, Commisso joins a legendary group of Columbia alumni including Lou Gehrig,Sid Luckman, Roone Arledge, Robert Kraft, Len Renery and Amr Aly. 

On Saturday (Oct. 22), Commisso will be recognized by the University during the official dedication of the newly renovated soccer field at the Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium named in his honor. Scheduled in conjunction with the Columbia’s 2016 Homecoming festivities, the ceremony will take place at 6:30pm between the women’s and men’s soccer matches against Dartmouth College. During the program, Commisso will be joined by Columbia Director of Intercollegiate Athletics, Peter Pilling, as well as a large contingent of current soccer players, coaches, alumni, family and friends.  

Despite not playing soccer in high school, Commisso earned a full four-year undergraduate scholarship to attend Columbia and was awarded three soccer letters. He started every game during his four-year career from 1967-70 (except for one due to injury) and earned a reputation as the “toughest” player in the Ivy League. A three-year All-Ivy League honoree both as a defensive and offensive player, Commisso guided the Lions to a four-year winning record. He served as Co-Captain of the 1970 team, the first-ever Columbia squad to advance to the NCAA Tournament, scoring 9 goals in 8 games as a center-forward, including Columbia’s first two NCAA Tournament goals in school history. He was also a member of a freshman squad that finished with an undefeated record and was invited to try-out for the 1972 U.S. Olympic Team.

Commisso has supported the University’s soccer program for 49 years, co-founding the Friends of Columbia Soccer in the mid-1970s and serving as its chairman from 1978-86, during which time Columbia won 8 straight Ivy Championships and became the only Ivy League school ever to compete in the NCAA Championship Final Game. In 2013, Columbia recognized his long-standing contributions to the university by naming its soccer venue at the school’s Baker Athletics Complex as the Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium.

Commisso earned both a BS degree in Industrial Engineering in 1971 and a MBA degree from the Graduate Business School in 1975. At the Business School, he was elected president of the student body and was the recipient of the prestigious Business School Service Award.

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Mediacom Communications said it will invest $1 billion over the next three years for a number of projects, including “Project Gigabit,” an upgrade and expansion initiative that will bring 1-Gig broadband to “virtually all” of the 3 million homes and businesses in the MSO’s footprint, which covers about 1,500 communities in 22 states.

Mediacom announced the capital investment to mark the company’s 20th anniversary – see this Q&A with Mediacom founder and CEO Rocco Commisso (subscription required) for more about the history of the company and what’s on the horizon for the New York-based MSO.

The company said Project Gigabit will build upon the residential gigabit product launches completed by Mediacom in 2015 and the Gigabit+ Fiber Solutions service currently offered by Mediacom Business today. Mediacom said it expects to bring the first wave of Project Gigabit communities online as early as the fourth quarter of 2016.

Mediacom said its $1 billion capital investment plan will fund other key initiatives, including the expansion of the Mediacom Business’s network inside downtown areas and commercial districts; the extension of Mediacom’s deep-fiber residential video, Internet and phone network in order to pass at least an additional 50,000 homes; and the deployment of community WiFi access points throughout high-traffic commercial and public areas across Mediacom’s national footprint.

“From the time we acquired our first cable system in March 1996, Mediacom’s focus has always been to offer the smaller communities we serve the same communications and video services that are available in America’s largest cities,” said Commisso, in a statement. “Project Gigabit will allow us to go even further by giving our customers access to one of the fastest broadband networks in the world.

“The $4.2 billion in private capital invested by Mediacom over the last 20 years has allowed us to, among other things, create an all-digital video network, launch a variety of advanced broadband services and deploy nearly 600,000 strand miles of fiber,” he added. Commisso. “We decided to accelerate our capital spending over the next 3 years because our Company wants to be the engine that drives economic growth and development for businesses and residents in the communities we serve.”

RELATED:Mediacom: 20 Years of Growth | Standing Up for Small Cable’s Interests | Mediacom: What They’re Saying | Viewpoint: Timing Was Right for Rocco

Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso’s life story is a classic tale of an immigrant who made it.

Commisso’s roots are in his birthplace of Calabria, Italy, where he was born in 1949, coming to the United States in 1962 with his parents, his older brother, Nick, and a younger sister, Italia. In an interview, Commisso said when he came to this country at 12 years old, he didn’t speak a word of English.

That changed quickly. Commisso had a knack for numbers early on and vaulted through elementary school — he said he was promoted from fifth grade to eighth grade in his first three months in the U.S. — attending high school at the prestigious Mount Saint Michael Academy in the Bronx and receiving a full scholarship to Columbia University. While at Columbia, Commisso worked nights as a supervisor at a Brooklyn Pfizer plant, going to school during the day. He also was a star soccer player at the college — he was co-captain and was invited to try out for the 1972 Olympic team. Commisso got his MBA at Columbia Business School in 1975.

FROM COLLEGE TO BANKING

Commisso’s first job after Columbia was with Chase Manhattan Bank in 1976. In 1978, he began working under Thomas Riefenheiser (later a Mediacom director), lending to the communications and entertainment sector — including the cable industry, which Commisso called his biggest break at the time.

Commisso was no stranger to hard work. He delivered pizzas as a teenager for his brother’s pizza business and in the mid-1970s, while still in graduate school, helped that same brother open a successful disco in the Bronx. Both endeavors gave him early hands-on experience in business.

Commisso helped run the disco even as he worked as a banker, but in 1981 he decided to sell his portion of the nightclub to his brother and focus on his day job. It was a good decision.

That same year, Commisso left Chase for Royal Bank of Canada, where he stayed for five years before joining Alan Gerry’s CableVision Industries in 1986 as chief financial officer. Commisso helped Gerry — who he still calls his mentor and friend — build CVI into the eighth-largest cable operator in the country before Gerry sold the business in 1995 to Time Warner Inc. for a then-record $2.8 billion.

MAPPED OUT A CABLE FUTURE

Commisso could have followed the rest of the cable herd and exited the business — the threat of impending regulation had forced several cable pioneers to sell their companies. But instead of heading for the beach, Commisso mapped out a plan to start his own cable company, Mediacom Communications. People said he was crazy (see Viewpoint, page 49), but in an eight-page business plan entitled “A Window of Opportunity,” Commisso believed the time was ripe to take advantage of attractive purchase multiples (8 to 10 times cash flow) by focusing on markets in which the larger companies had no presence or interest.

In hindsight, Commisso rightly predicted that the rate regulation of the 1992 Cable Act would “be eliminated or radically revised,” and pledged that Mediacom would have: a deliberate market focus; a flexible capital structure; would form strategic alliances for services like phone; and would have a defined exit strategy. The company adhered to those promises almost to the letter except for one: Commisso originally expected to be out of the business in five to seven years.

About 20 years later, Mediacom has grown into a powerhouse among small operators — while video subscribers have declined by about 740,000 customers since 2001, its primary service units (or PSUs, a combination of subscribers to all three of its services) have grown from 1.7 million to 2.4 million today. Mediacom’s employees, who Commisso credits for much of the company’s success, have risen from 3,200 in 2001 to 4,600 today. The company prides itself on having no major layoff s during the period, even in depressed economic times after the 2008 market crash.

A TEAM PLAYER

Commisso also has fostered loyalty among his top managers, who have been with the company for an average of 18.5 years. The longest tenured next to Commisso himself are chief financial officer Mark Stephan (20 years), executive vice president of programming and HR (and Rocco’s sister) Italia Commisso-Weinand (20 years) and senior vice president and controller Brian Walsh. The youngsters of the team: EVP of operations John Pascarelli (18 years); SVP and chief technology officer JR Walden (18 years); and SVP and general counsel Joe Young (15 years).

Commisso and Mediacom have also proudly stuck to their guns on the financing and acquisitions side. Although the company has not made a major purchase since it bought AT&T Broadband’s systems in Iowa, Georgia, Illinois and Missouri in 2001, its average acquisition cost between 1996 and 2001 was $2,155 per subscriber, compared to the industry average of $3,432 per subscriber.

EYE ON DEBT

Mediacom instead has reinvested capital in the business — including about $4.2 billion in the broadband network — and up until its successful go-private transaction in 2011, bought back its own highly undervalued stock. In that going-private transaction, Commisso bought out his longtime backer, Morris Communications.

Commisso and his team also have shown their savvy in the financing markets. Mediacom’s cost of debt at yearend 2015 was about 4.3%, the lowest in the industry.

“That’s very impressive,” Moffett Nathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett said.

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Despite its size, Mediacom Communications has picked some pretty hefty battles in the past 20 years, taking the lead on what still are hot-button issues in the cable industry — rising sports programming costs and retransmission consent — as well as more recent issues like the Title II reclassification of broadband and the unbundling of the set-top box business.

Mediacom made its biggest splash in 2003, when the eighth-largest cable operator in the country took on ESPN, petitioning the Federal Communications Commission for permission to place the sports network on a separate tier. Mediacom’s move was to offset what was then ESPN’s regular 20% annual rate increase, a boost that chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso said was a direct result of the network’s overpayment for sports rights.

Mediacom didn’t win that fight — the FCC didn’t rule on the sports-tiering issue, and Mediacom’s later carriage deal with the network didn’t pare down the increases. But it did set the stage for a later fight between ESPN and Cox Communications CEO Jim Robbins.

Robbins accused The Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN of “goofy economics” and threatened to drop the network. The battle, which lasted for almost a year, ended when Cox signed a 10- year agreement for ESPN, with an average rate increase of 7% annually.

The 7% increase became an industry benchmark and Commisso was one of the few cable CEOs who publicly supported Robbins and Cox through the battle.

But the ESPN battle was just the beginning. Commisso and Mediacom took up the retransmission-consent gauntlet early, asking the FCC to halt programming blackouts during negotiations with TV stations and to curb rate increases. The cable operator also has been involved in some high-profile disputes — most notably its three-month standoff with Sinclair Broadcast Group stations in Iowa, Mediacom’s largest cluster of markets, in 2007.

Other fights followed with LIN Broadcasting in 2011, Granite in 2015 and Media General in 2015.

Mediacom was one of the founding members of the American Television Alliance (ATVA), a group of distributors targeting retrans reform. The company has also been active in the FCC’s most recent retransmission- consent moves, asking the agency to condition broadcast license renewals on certification that a station will not black out its signal during a retrans dispute if the station is not accessible to 90% of its market either over-the-air or on the Web.

“He has definitely been willing to be the face of some pretty controversial issues, more than any other,” MoffettNathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett said of Commisso. “He has championed the small cable operator and the intrinsic disadvantage they face in retrans disputes and programming negotiations.”

More recently, Mediacom has taken up the Title II mantle, with Commisso publicly calling out President Obama during his visit to Iowa last year. The president, who has championed the FCC’s Title II reclassification of broadband, had visited Cedar Falls (Iowa) Municipal Communications Utility, a Mediacom competitor, in the run-up to his 2015 State of the Union Address.

Interviewed by C-SPAN on the day of the Title II vote, Commisso challenged Obama’s choice to visit a monopoly — the municipal broadband provider was also the water, gas and electric utility — to talk about how Mediacom was a monopoly, and called Title II a “monstrous regulatory scheme.”

“How fair is it for the president to pick and choose what side he wants to appease to?” Commisso told C-SPAN that day, adding that his employees were upset they didn’t even get a mention when the president came to Cedar Falls to talk about the importance of broadband.

Mediacom has come out publicly against the FCC’s plan to unbundle the set-top box market — a move Mediacom said will stifle investment in the broadband network. And the company has also criticized the government’s treatment of Google, subsidizing its Google Fiber buildouts in several municipalities. In one instance, Huntsville Utilities, the city of Huntsville, Ala.’s own municipal utility, is building a $60 million fiber network that it plans to lease back to the Internet service provider.

Commisso and Mediacom believe it is strange that the richest Internet company in the world needs help in terms of municipal tax dollars, while cable operators, which have created jobs and built networks out of their own pockets in their communities, get nothing.

Moffett said Commisso has never been afraid to take a principled stand and has spoken out against what he believes are policies that are discouraging investment in infrastructure and the business. And his words have more weight because they are backed up with decades of action.

“He can speak to those issues with a level of moral authority that his peers can’t because he is a true entrepreneur,” Moffett said. “He’s been willing to put his money where his mouth is.

“He’s invested, and when he talks about what it takes to create jobs, he talks about it from the perspective of someone who has actually created jobs,” Moffett said.

For Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso, the cable industry has been so much like the game of soccer that the onetime Olympic hopeful once excelled at: The good ones are fast on their feet, but the great ones can see down the field.

Commisso’s talent for seeing things others don’t has permeated his business life. He bought his first cable system — a small property in Ridgecrest, Calif. — on March 12, 1996, just as others were jumping out. He was an early critic of rising programming costs, sports rights and retransmission-consent fees. And he’s relied on a strong financial prowess to ground the risks he’s taken to build the company from scratch.

Today, Mediacom is the eighth-largest cable operator, serving 855,000 video subscribers.

Commisso’s story is right out of a movie: a tale of a young immigrant, brought here by his family from Calabria, Italy, at the tender age of 12, who one day takes the business world by storm. Commisso credits his father with seeing something in his son.

He recounted a story about his second day in the U.S., in 1962, when his father took him to school and told the teachers about his smart son, who was then promoted on the spot from fifth grade to seventh without knowing a word of English. Three months later, he was promoted to the eighth grade.

“Three years in three months. That was the biggest break of my life,” Commisso said in a recent interview.

Commisso went on to graduate from Mount Saint Michael Academy in the Bronx, N.Y., and then Columbia University with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and an MBA. He joined the cable business first through banking — at Chase Manhattan Bank and later Royal Bank of Canada — lending to the-still nascent industry. In 1986, he was named chief financial officer of CableVision Industries and for almost a decade, he helped founder and CEO Alan Gerry grow that company into one of the top 10 operators in the business.

Commisso left CVI in 1995, the year Gerry sold the operation to Time Warner Inc., to start Mediacom. By March of the next year, Commisso had purchased the Ridgecrest system.

It was a risky move. The passage of the Cable Act of 1992 meant that real rate regulation was being implemented on the industry for the first time, forcing many cable entrepreneurs to sell out. For Commisso, it was the absolute right time to buy.

“He’s one of the last of the true entrepreneurs,” Moffett Nathanson principal and senior analyst Craig Moffett, a longtime Commisso watcher, said. “He’s left a really remarkable legacy. And like every good entrepreneur, he did it the hard way, by betting on cable at exactly the time when everyone else was nervous.”

Mediacom went on an acquisitions tear soon after, buying Cablevision Systems’s US Cable operations with 265,000 customers in 1997 and doubling in size with the purchase of 358,000 customers from Triax Midwest Associates and Zylstra Communications in 1999 for $760 million.

Mediacom doubled in size again in 2001 with its biggest buy of them all, the $2.1 billion deal to acquire 840,000 subscribers in Georgia, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri from AT&T Broadband. The deal made Commisso the defacto king of Iowa cable — about 500,000 of those subscribers were based in the state — with systems in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Waterloo, among other localities.

While Commisso could have continued to ride the acquisitions wave toward greater scale, he instead focused on repaying debt, taking Mediacom’s leverage ratio down from 8.9 times cash _ ow at the time of the AT&T deal to about 4.3 times today.

Mediacom went public in 2000, raising about $380 million, and went private in 2011 in a series of deals that have helped Commisso and Mediacom create more wealth than practically anyone else in the cable business.

Commisso and Mediacom achieved that by focusing on fundamentals. Mediacom has grown revenue every quarter and every year since its inception, and has grown cash _ ow every year except one, 2005, when it declined 1% in the wake of three hurricanes — Dennis, Ivan and Katrina — that devastated the cable company’s southern markets.

“The recipe for getting rich in any business has been the same as the days of Ancient Greece — buy low and sell high,” Moffett said. “Rocco has demonstrated a remarkable ability to focus on the true value of the business.”

Commisso and Mediacom senior vice president of government and public relations Thomas Larsen met with Multichannel News, B&C and Next TV editorial director Mark Robichaux and Multichannel News senior finance editor Mike Farrell at the aptly named Rocco’s Steakhouse in New York earlier this month to talk about Mediacom’s past, present and future and the state of the cable business. Here are edited highlights of that conversation.

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MCN:It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years.

Rocco Commisso: I was supposed to get out in five, seven years. Remember those days? I think the reason why we’re still around is my penchant for retaining control and always raising capital. I’m never going to permit anyone to decide when I should stay in and when I should get out.

MCN:What’s been your secret to the business?

RC: There is an acquisition strategy, there is an operating strategy and there is a financing strategy. And I think it’s absolutely critical to the way that I look at the world.

We bought extremely well. When [others] were going out and buying [systems] at $4,300 per subscriber, my biggest deals were the US Cable assets that I bought from Cablevision [Systems] at $1,100 per subscriber. Before that we had the lower Delaware system that we bought from Tele-Communications Inc. at $1,400 per sub, in terms of critical assets that we bought.

Then, right at the end of 1999, we made the Triax acquisition. I bought those assets at $2,100 per sub. Comcast was paying $5,000 per sub. And then the AT&T acquisition; while everybody was circling around I end up with the prize. We paid $2,700 per sub for the AT&T acquisition, which was higher than what I paid on anything else, but the market was trading cable assets at way, way higher.

So those are the three big [ones] on the acquisition front. The three or four major fundamental deals that took us to where we are. On the operating front, it’s amazing that our margins have been so consistent in the last five years.

MCN:How has Mediacom survived while most other smaller companies have sold out?

RC: Control in terms of longevity is one part of it. We have never had a year of no revenue growth. We had one year of a 1% decline in cash flow, the result of three hurricanes down south between 2004-2005.

MCN:You’ve borrowed quite a bit. Did being leveraged that much make you nervous?

RC: Yeah, it made me nervous. When we were doing the AT&T deal, AT&T forced me in four months to go out and raise $2.4 billion.

Look, it’s all relative. Some people that have $100,000 in debt are probably more nervous than me with $3 billion. But what reduced the nervousness, if you will, it all has to do with the financing side of the equation. Always, always — not today, not yesterday, but always — I overfinanced myself and put myself in a situation where I didn’t have to do the next deal to survive.

MCN:The mantra throughout the industry has been scale, scale, scale. Why haven’t you gone out and bought more cable systems?

RC: Because I didn’t have to. I did not ever say that I wanted to be the biggest guy in town. Never did, never will.

No. 2, we made a decision, and rightly so, that when my stock was trading at $5 to $7 [per share], beginning in 2002, we began buying the stock. We bought 24 million shares in the open markets from 2002 to 2008. In the same week that Lehman Bros. goes bankrupt, I commit to help [Morris Communications chief William Morris] and buy his 28 million shares.

[Commisso explained that left 68 million shares of Mediacom outstanding, of which he owned 28 million. The other 41 million was purchased in the going-private transaction in 2011 at a multiple of seven times cash flow.]

I could have quadrupled the size of the company and still not generated the kind of equity returns I generated in the last five years.

Thomas Larsen: There were deals that came to the market and he looked at them and they just didn’t make sense.

MCN:Because they were too expensive?

RC: Or the risk that I was willing to assume was not commensurate with the returns that I saw in the deal.

MCN:Let’s switch gears. How is the business today — voice, video, data? How are you doing?

RC: Video stinks still for us. But I can’t give up on video. The good part about what’s happened to us indirectly is that by having had all these losses, we are a more diversified company and we’re a better company in certain respects. Because video is only 50% of my business today, where it was 95% 15 years ago.

MCN:And that’s true of a lot of small operators.

RC: Right.

MCN:So why be in video?

RC: You can’t let it go. It’s 50% of my revenue. I can’t get rid of 50% of my revenue and have the same company that I have. Unfortunately the government has forced me to charge prices on video that I would have never had, if it wasn’t for programming costs going up from $4.50 [per subscriber] back in 1992 to $50 [per subscriber] today. I would’ve never done that. We don’t do rate increases anymore; we just do pass-throughs. So I have to stay in business, I have to get a return on my investment and prices do go up for the consumer, which is unfortunate, and the government could have fixed that.

MCN:Are you losing subs?

RC: Yeah. We lost subs last year, we lost more subs the year before, and more subs the year before. I think there’s a little bit of a turnaround. We may be losing, but not where we used to lose.

MCN:What about data?

RC: If it wasn’t for data, we wouldn’t be around.

MCN:But the margins are so good on the broadband product.

RC: Well, let’s be careful how you describe margins. The margins are very good, but what is missing in the equation is the cost on the capex front that we spend in order to keep those margins.

MCN:And what is that?

RC: Well, it’s huge. I mean we spent $287 million last year.

Our price for our 50 [Mbps] service is the same today as our 1.5 [Mbps] service was 15 years ago. And why is that? Because we grow in units, we have great margins and we don’t have something called programming costs that causes the price of the other product to go up as much as it has.

On the broadband side I was able to retain the same price that I have for the 1.5 [Mbps] service from 15 years ago, even though the speed has gone up by 30 times.

MCN:Who is your biggest competitor in the market? The telcos, satellite?

RC: For video, for sure, it’s satellite. Then there is AT&T, a little bit of Verizon [Communications], municipal overbuilds and WOW [WideOpenWest].

TL: Then there is CenturyLink, Windstream, a little bit of Frontier [Communications].

MCN:What is the competitive outlook for Mediacom, particularly against the telcos?

TL: I think we’re winning. We’re definitely winning broadband share back.

RC: Look, the happiest result and surprise in many respects of our company performance is all related to the worst performance of our company, meaning on the video side. Just think about it. I lost 45% of our video customers in the last 15 years and I never had a down year of revenue; and, except for that hurricane season, I only had one year of down cash flow. That’s a pretty strong statement for anyone to be able to make.

MCN:Are you growing business customers?

RC: Big time. Like everybody else.

MCN:What keeps you up at night? What worries you most in the industry right now?

RC: The government.

MCN:You’ve had a particularly loud voice when it comes to speaking up for independent, smaller cable operators. What are the two or three biggest issues right now that concern you most about the government?

RC: First of all, you’ve got retrans, sports rights, volume discounts, bundling, unbundling that I’ve been speaking about for the last 13 years. You want to call me the loudest voice in the business? I’d be proud to be called that. It’s fact. I have fought my battles.

And I suffered a lot, but you would have thought that if the government aspires to be what they think they are for the people, they would have done something about it.

MCN:What do you want them to do?

RC: Back in 1992, they regulated our business, but they didn’t regulate the supplier side. And I wrote a big paper then that basically said, in a nutshell, [that] in a capital-intensive business … if you have to spend the same money to have the same wire but the demand or the potential subscriber base is reduced by half, at the end of the day it’s going to cost you more as opposed to less. Boy, have I been right.

What I forecasted then actually happened in the last 20 years in that, if you want to regulate us, you’ve got to regulate the cost. So why don’t you deal with the programming side? And the reason why they don’t deal with the programming side is because frankly there are too many interests with enough power in Washington to take care of their interests. It’s the sports leagues, it’s the universities, its Hollywood and that’s it.

MCN:What about ESPN?

RC: We took them on and we lost. Now they’re suffering the consequences.

MCN:Because you were saying publicly that ESPN was going to price themselves out of the business.

RC: Right.

MCN:Do you think the market is taking care of this now?

RC: No. I think $50 a month for programming costs, that’s average. Some are more and some are less. Me and you, we don’t watch everything. Why should we be forced to buy the whole package? I don’t know how it’s going to get fixed but it’s $50 today, it’s going to be $55 tomorrow, it’s going to be $60.

MCN:Are you offering skinny bundles?

RC: Not yet. We want to but we have to deal with the contracts that we have on hand.

MCN:How will programmers handle skinny bundles?

RC: I don’t know. But I think Verizon has broken the ice. I think [Dish Network’s over-the-top subscription service] Sling [TV] has broken the ice.

MCN:So you think distributors will say no, that it will be a market resolution, not a government resolution to this?

RC: Unfortunately, yes. Just like retrans. We’re probably going to get better.

TL: I think they will be slightly improved. I was at the FCC on Tuesday [March 1] and my impression is they want to do some fixes at the surface, but they don’t want to get to the fundamental issue, which is how do we strike better deals, how do we get more reasonable deals done? They want to fi x things like online blocking and maybe ceding negotiation rights to other parties and things like that but those don’t fundamentally get you to getting deals done [at] a market rate.

MCN:What are you looking for from the government?

TL: One of the things we’ve proposed is a cooling-off period where you get to an impasse, like in a labor negotiation. Both parties say you can’t get any further … Then, they have to go to mediation and an objective third party takes a look at both sides’ offers and says, “Hey, either one of you is being unreasonable or you’re both being reasonable and you’re just being stubborn, whatever it is.” But then that report gets published and the public can figure out who the good guy and the bad guy is.

RC: For programmers, unless you have differentiated programming, better programming and so on, you can’t put a rate increase in excess of X. Two, unbundle everything. Have a price for ESPN, and so on.

Three, no volume discounts. Why should my customers and I pay more than the customers of Comcast? Four –

TL: Well, in that one, no cost-based volume discounts. The littlest guys pay a huge premium to get the same signal.

RC: If somebody wants to shut me down in Des Moines, a CBS station, I should be able to import that CBS station.

TL: A couple of other ideas we’ve kicked around are, one, an expiration date so that every contract has to expire on the same date, so that you can’t play the market against each other. You can’t do the, “I’m going to black out Dish on Tuesday, Mediacom on Wednesday, DirecTV on Thursday,” to jack up the price. That we think would help tremendously.

The other [is] setting a market rate — just have one rate for the market. If you elect retrans, you wanted $1, you wanted $10, you elect that rate — it’s for everybody in the market. And they get to decide whether to pay that.

MCN:What else upsets you?

TL: Set-tops.

MCN:The FCC’s recent decision to open up the box to third-party vendors?

TL: Google hasn’t really grown their video business. So this to me is a backdoor way into the video business, right? Google gets those streams, they can take those streams, they can overlay their ads, they can spy on our customers, know what they are watching. Those ads become significantly more valuable because you know what the person cares about. So those are all things we’ve paid for.

MCN:Why are you and others so concerned about this current set-top box proposal?

TL: We’re getting ready to announce a major capital plan for the next three years. Rocco has made significant strides in reducing the debt. So now we’ve got money to invest back in the business. If we have an expense, a huge expense that we can’t recoup any money for, guess where our money is going to go? It’s going to go to pay down those boxes, it’s not going to go to build a better product. And that’s what the government is missing. It’s discouraging companies from investing in broadband because they’re going to be protecting their investment.

RC: That’s No. 1, Tom. And when they think of cable, they think of Comcast, they don’t think of Rocco and all the smaller guys, am I right?

I don’t have the resources that Comcast has. They want to go and destroy or decrease the market power of Comcast, but whatever rules are applicable should not be the same rules applicable to me. I’m not Comcast, I’m not hedged with the programming assets. I only make money from being a distributor, whereas Comcast makes money from being in Hollywood and so on. We are a totally different animal. And that’s the mistake that’s been made, unfortunately.

TL: But the thing that blows up this whole set top [issue] is the Roku box. So, this little tiny Roku box is going to have a DVR functionality to it that completely replaces the set-top. So what is the government after? What are you trying to regulate the market into if that box exists today?

MCN:What about OTT. Are you going to offer an OTT product?

RC: In our markets or in the U.S.A.?

MCN:That’s a bigger question. You tell me.

RC: If a cable company tries to do that to me, I will do it to them.

MCN:Is that day coming?

RC: No, I don’t think so.

MCN:Would you ever offer an OTT product in your market?

RC: Yeah.

MCN:Are you guys planning that?

RC: We’re doing some TV everywhere. I mean, that’s just a standard evolution.

TL: It’s really hard for us to be a leader in that space. You have to be a follower, because it takes the big companies to create the contract provisions that we could jump onto, you know what I’m saying? It’s hard. But you could do it.

The problem with OTT, if you talked to an engineer, is that if everything moved that way it puts a tremendous strain on the network. I mean like when they showed that football game at 10 a.m. on Yahoo!, network congestion shot up. So there is an advantage to having a linear stream that handles the video traffic.

MCN:A lot of people talk about cord-cutting. What’s your outlook for the cable industry?

RC: It could come to an end. I don’t see it. But look at your own businesses, right guys? Without wanting to pick on your business, right? Or the business that I used to lend money to. Take the newspaper industry, you know a little bit about this.

Do you know that the equity value of this company [Mediacom] is greater than the The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the L.A. Times?

MCN:That doesn’t surprise me.

RC: It surprises me because 30 y ears ago, I wasn’t allowed to call some of these companies because they were too good for me. Does it surprise you to let you know that The New York Times, Gannett, McClatchy, Knight Ridder, The Washington Post — all were in the cab le business?

And they decided to stay in the newspaper business and get rid of the cab le business. That’s pretty smart. How is it possible? Who was running those companies that made those decisions to get rid of the cab le business and stay in the newspaper business? H ow come they didn’t see the future?

MCN:Believe me, it’ s a question I ask myself every single day.

RC: Broadcasting. The only reason why broadcasting is still alive is because of the giveaways from the government. First the spectrum and two is retrans.

MCN:Do you have any regrets about going private?

RC: No, and I might still go public. You never know. If someone wants to give me …

MCN:Come on.

RC: No, seriously. We went public at 18 times cash flow. If there’s another crazy market, come to me baby, I’ll sell you. [Laughter.]

MCN:We talked about you not being a buyer. Are you going to be a seller? What’s your plan? What’s your exit strategy?

RC: One month, one day, one year at a time.

[Commisso then starts making a series of calculations, one that estimates what would happen if he lost 25% of his cash flow in one year.]

MCN:Why are we making that assumption?

RC: I want you to think the way I think.

MCN:You’re thinking worst-case scenario.

RC: I don’t think how much money, I think about how am I going to screw this up. All right?

MCN:What would your dad say about all of this?

RC: I think my dad would say, because I know what he went through. He’s an immigrant, he was a prisoner of war for five years in Africa under the British, came to this country, got his citizenship papers, brought us all over in 1962. He would say … my father would probably say I expect that of my son.

If I have anything good to say in my entire history as to who I am and why I am who I am it’s because of the financial community. It’s not the programming community, it’s not my peers. It’s not the newspapers. It’s the financial community and my employees.

And if I had one area that I think I’m OK at, better than average, it’s finance. Finance is my area of strength.

MCN:Wow.

RC: He knew something about me that I didn’t even realize. He’s the one that instilled that in me and said, “You are the one that’s got to go to school, you’re the one that could get into any school, you’re the one.” He sent money when we were poor, poor, poor, poor, poor that I don’t even want to talk about. He told my mother, “You make sure you send that kid to music school.” That’s why I play the accordion and the piano.

MCN:Do you have a number, an age or a price that you want to get out?

RC: Absolutely not.

MCN:How old are you now, Rocco?

RC: I’m 66.

MCN:Will you still be doing this at 70?

RC: Probably. I don’t know.

MCN:What do you think drives you?

RC: I think the No. 1 driver is the fact that I don’t have a second gig and — o h my God, you have to see all the analysis that I did in m y own head, on a piece of paper and a projection model to see how am I going to screw this up, how do I protect myself from screwing up? When you deal with a financing and all the loan agreements that we used to do, you have to think about all the things that could go wrong five years down the road and make sure that, if things do go wrong, you’ve got wiggle room to get out of the mess.

Never in a million years did I say I’m going be around for 20 years.

When I left Alan [Gerry] and started this company, I had an overwhelming objective to show the world that this is not the end of the cable business, even though I didn’t know at that time that the Internet was going to come around. We were talking about maybe offering phone then, but not the Internet.  

RELATED:Mediacom: 20 Years of Growth | Rocco Commisso: From Calabria to a Cable Chairmanship | Standing Up for Small Cable’s Interests | Viewpoint: Timing Was Right for Rocco

MICHAEL POWELL, PRESIDENT AND CEO, NATIONAL CABLE & TELECOMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION

“Mediacom and Rocco are true leaders in our industry. Born out of risk-taking and entrepreneurism, Mediacom has grown into one of our fi nest multiple-system operators, providing to Americans in mid- and smaller-size markets an unsurpassed level of excellence in broadband, video, voice and business services. Rocco has been a passionate and stalwart advocate for cable, demanding that customers should come first, and that public policy should provide the incentives and the means for cable operators to innovate and serve their customers with high value offerings. On a personal note, there is no beer friend to have than Rocco, with his warm and gregarious demeanor and his undying support.”

TOM RUTLEDGE, CEO, CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS

“I have known Rocco for many years. He is a good friend and someone whose personal story would make for must see programming on many networks … not just CNBC. He is also the best thing besides money to come from the banking industry. Rocco has more belief in himself and the cable industry than anybody and his sheer will and guts created Mediacom, a great American success story.”

DAVID ZASLAV, PRESIDENT AND CEO, DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS

“Rocco is a true entrepreneur and has really lived the ‘American Dream’ after arriving in America as a kid. He worked hard to earn everything he has built at Mediacom. He has been a strong partner to me for the past two decades and one of the champions who has made this industry what it is today. He is a tough and respected operator with terrific financial acumen, a fighter who believes in his company, a company that 20 years later, he still runs with the passion he had the day he founded it.”

PHILIPPE DAUMAN, EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN AND CEO, VIACOM

“Rocco is one of the true entrepreneurs in the modern distribution landscape — tenacious, engaged and passionate about his system and the smaller markets it serves. He’s also a quintessential New Yorker, with a well-earned reputation for being a straight talker. Viacom and Mediacom have had great success working together to grow our businesses over the years, and I have a lot of respect for Rocco and his accomplishments.”

JERRY KENT, FORMER CEO, SUDDENLINK COMMUNCIATIONS

“Rocco is not only a friend, he is a hero to the industry. There has been no champion for midsized and smaller operators more relentless or passionate than him. I count myself fortunate to have served as a cable entrepreneur alongside him.”

PAT ESSER, PRESIDENT, COX COMMUNICATIONS

“Mediacom is a great example of the American Dream coming to life and the broadband cable industry it helped build will continue to create opportunities for future entrepreneurs and innovators. Congratulations to Rocco and his team.”

JOSH SAPAN, CEO, AMC NETWORKS

“Rocco embodies the best of what is entrepreneurial and original, qualities that have contributed to the fabric and success of cable TV. His iconoclastic nature and his path less well traveled embody the spirit that makes Mediacom a great company and makes cable a great industry.”

DENNIS WHARTON, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT MEDIA RELATIONS, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS

“Congrats to Rocco Commisso on two decades at the Mediacom helm. In exchange for modest carriage fees, broadcasters are proud to provide Mediacom customers with marquee primetime entertainment, the most popular televised sporting events, local news and emergency weather warnings that save lives. We wish Mediacom continued success.”

Mediacom Communications founder, chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso was recently recognized for his humanitarian efforts, receiving top honors from the Ellis Island Foundation and his alma mater, Mount Saint Michael Academy.

Commisso, who has given generously to several private and public institutions over the years, was awarded the Ellis Island Medals of Honor, joining 100 other recipients including retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, talk show host Meredith Vieira, New York Yankees legend Mariano Rivera, U.S. Navy Admiral Mark E. Ferguson III, and Washington, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier in a ceremony at the historic landmark on May 9.

The Ellis Island Medals of Honor were established in 1986 and rank among the most prestigious civilian honors in the country. The award recognizes individuals who share with those less fortunate their knowledge, courage, compassion, unique talents and generosity, all while maintaining the traditions of their ethnic heritage as they uphold the ideals and spirit of America. Past recipients include six U.S. Presidents; Nobel Prize recipient Elie Wiesel; Generals Norman Schwarzkopf, Colin Powell and Raymond Odierno; Hon. Hillary Clinton; Sen. John McCain; Muhammad Ali; Frank Sinatra; Barbara Walters; Mike Wallace; and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Commisso was lauded for, among other things, providing college scholarships to 1,300 students nationwide.  During his remarks, Commisso described the struggles his family faced in war-torn Italy in the 1950’s. He thanked America for opening its doors to his father, a World War II prisoner of war, and for giving his family boundless opportunities to succeed by simply working hard, pursuing an education, and relying on self-initiative to get ahead.

On Thursday evening (May 14) Commisso is scheduled to be inducted into Mount St. Michael Academy’s “Legends of the Mount,” with five other alumni at a ceremony at the New York Athletic Club in Pelham, N.Y.  

Commisso, a graduate of the school in the 1960s, established the Rocco B. Commisso American Dream Fund at the school in 2014 to provide a number of scholarships to Mount students for the next 50 years.

Industry players and policymakers were quick to react to the President's speech in Iowa promoting municipal broadband and slamming other ISPs over price and service.

The American Cable Association praised the President, but one of its high-profile members saw it quite differently.

This from Rocco Commisso, the CEO of Mediacom:  “I think it is fair to say that the only reason the vast majority of Iowans are able to enjoy broadband speeds that are significantly faster than dial-up, DSL or cellular 3G and 4G service, for that matter, is because Mediacom has honored its commitment made 15 years ago. At a time when no one else was willing to spend the money, we promised to take the necessary risks to ensure that the citizens of Iowa were not mere bystanders in the digital revolution, but active participants in the broadband economy.  Mediacom has enriched the lives of Iowans and provided fertile ground for businesses, large and small, to prosper and grow.

“I mean no disrespect to the President,” Commisso continued, “but traveling to Iowa in order to be a cheerleader for government-owned and taxpayer-funded broadband networks while ignoring the far more significant contributions of Mediacom is an insult to our 1,600 dedicated employees who live and work in Iowa.”

ACA praised the President for highlighting 1 gig offering of Cedar Falls municipal provider Cedar Falls Utilities. also an ACA member, and other municipal systems. "What ties Cedar Falls Utilities, Mediacom and all of these providers together is a drive to give American consumers broadband service that enables them to access entertainment content, exchange social information, and engage in civic debate," said ACA. "Consumers consider this connectivity critical, and ACA members, whether public or private, are responding by investing in innovative services and new infrastructure to make even higher speed service a reality."

ACA suggested that municipal nets could work with private ones to advance the President's goals. "To further deployment of high-speed broadband infrastructure throughout the country, we should encourage communities to work to facilitate deployments by private sector providers by finding ways to lower the costs of deployment and accelerate demand, ACA president Matt Polka said.  This teamwork is essential to ensuring that all Americans have this key tool to participate fully in our economy and society.”

Mediacom did not sound in a cooperating mood. "CFU is a municipal utility that leverages its government-conferred monopoly over electric, water and gas service to unfairly compete with private enterprises for cable television and high-speed Internet customers," the company said. The President’s remarks combined with the selection of CFU as the venue for his speech clearly show that the White House wants to waste taxpayer dollars to supplant our Nation’s private sector broadband providers with government-owned utility companies."

USTelecom, which represents AT&T, Verizon and other telecoms, matched the President's strong language with some of its own.

"“The president’s Title II reclassification and state preemption proposals, taken together, call for the federal government to regulate the Internet, and for municipal governments to own the Internet.  If acted upon by the Federal Communications Commission, they would be sweeping exercises of authority – raising constitutional concerns related to separation-of-powers, the scope of an independent agency’s Congressionally delegated authority, and the role of the states in our federal system," said USTelecom president Walter McCormick.. And, how will these expanded government roles be financed? With higher costs to consumers, and new taxes and fees on local  citizens.......AT&T is the nation’s leader when it comes to expansion of gigabit networks, with current plans to cover up to 100 cities and  municipalities. CenturyLink is making gigabit service available in 16 cities. Verizon FiOS led the way on gigabit fiber deployment as the prime mover in this field. And, virtually every member of this association, large and small, urban and rural, is engaged in fiber upgrades.  These positive actions should be encouraged through pro-investment policies, not discouraged through burdensome new regulation and taxpayer  subsidies to duplicative government enterprises.”

Even before the speech, National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Michael Powell was pointing to the private industry's investments in plant and speed.

“The cable industry has invested over $230 billion to build robust broadband networks that reach 93 percent of U.S. homes, said Powell. The President said that access to broadband was not the same as access to broadband at the speeds that will be needed.

"We agree with the President that connecting all Americans to this critical technology should be a national priority," said Powell, "and that is why we have long supported the use of scarce government funding to support universal service in areas where private networks are not economically viable.

“America’s decades-long policy of promoting private investment and exercising a light regulatory touch has yielded substantial benefits for American consumers," he continued. "As evidence, cable’s top broadband speeds have increased over 3200 percent in a decade, Akamai recently reported that 12 American states are among the 20 fastest regions of the world and our markets remain the envy of the world.  While government run networks may be appropriate in rare cases, many such enterprises have ended up in failure, saddling taxpayers with significant long-term financial liabilities and diverting scarce resources from other pressing local needs.

Republican Commissioner Michael O'Rielly saw the President's broadband push as an unwarranted intrusion in the business of an independent agency.

"It is clear that this Administration doesn’t believe in the independent nature of the FCC. It is disappointing that the Commission’s leadership is without a sufficient backbone to do what is right and reject this blatant and unnecessary interference designed to further a political goal ," he said. "Substantively, this missive is completely without statutory authority and would be a good candidate for court review, if adopted. In reality, this debate is about preempting a state’s right to prevent taxpayer rip-offs. Municipal broadband has never proven to be the panacea that supporters claim and the Administration now boasts. Instead, we have seen a long track record of projects costing more than expected and delivering less than promised."

NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association gave the President mixed reviews.

"[NTCA] applauds President Obama’s focus on increasing every American’s access to robust and affordable broadband," the group said. "But it’s not clear that encouraging local governments to get into a very difficult communications business for the first time on their own is the best path to achieve that important goal."

Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso continues to give back to his community in a big way, this time funding the Rocco B. Commisso American Dream Scholarship Fund” at his high school alma mater, Mount St. Michael Academy in the Bronx.

The scholarships will be awarded annually to outstanding Mount students entering their sophomore; junior and senior class years who have achieved academic and/or athletic success while displaying leadership and entrepreneurial qualities. The scholarships are designed to reduce the fiscal barriers for young men seeking an Catholic college preparatory education and to build a diversified cadre of successful future leaders.

The American Dream Scholarships and its first student recipients will be introduced at Mount St. Michael’s Honors Convocation on Tuesday, Sept. 23. The ceremony will be followed by a reception in the Mount’s historic Rotunda, which will be renamed the Rocco B. Commisso American Dream Rotunda.

Commisso, a 1967 graduate of Mount St. Michael’s, founded Mediacom Communications in 1995 and grew the company to become the eighth largest cable operator in the country. Commisso has given generously of his time and money to several charitable causes and last year his college alma mater – Columbia Univeristy – renamed its soccer stadium in his honor. 

“We are honored to name our Rotunda after Rocco Commisso,” said Mount President, Anthony Miserandino in a statement. “Rocco’s story of success, with deep roots in our Bronx community, serves as an inspiration to our students, many of whom come from immigrant families and are working tirelessly to achieve their own American Dream.” le, added, “the amazing commitment Rocco is showing the Mount through this scholarship program will open opportunities and change lives for many young men in our community for decades to come.”

Born in Calabria, Italy, Commisso immigrated to the United States at age 12. He earned both a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Engineerin and a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University. He was elected president of the business school student body, and was the recipient of the prestigious Business School Service Award. He also was co-captain of the Columbia men’s varsity soccer team, named a three-time All-Ivy League honoree, and was invited to participate in the 1972 U.S. Olympic Soccer Team trials. In 2004, on the 250th anniversary of Columbia’s founding, the school’s undergraduate newspaper, Columbia Daily Spectator, listed Commisso among Columbia’s 250 greatest undergraduate alumni of all time. In 2013, Columbia recognized Commisso’s more than 40 years of contributions to its soccer program by naming its soccer venue at the school’s Baker Athletics Complex as the Rocco B. Commisso Soccer Stadium.

Commisso serves on the board of directors of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, C-SPAN and Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. He is a past recipient of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the National Italian American Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and the Vanguard Award for Distinguished Leadership, the cable television industry’s highest individual honor. Under his guidance, Mediacom has been recognized for outstanding achievements including being named the nation’s best cable company of 2009 by CableFAX magazine and as one of North America's 500 Fastest Growing Technology Companies by Deloitte in 2003. Commisso was welcomed into the SUNY New Paltz School of Business Hall of Fame in 2010, and was also named the school’s Business Person of the Year. He has also been inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame and the Cable Center Hall of Fame.