The owner of a billionaire cable TV empire doesn’t own a yacht, private jet, and beach mansion, and instead paid $170 million to buy a professional Italian soccer team.
Rocco Commisso, 73, bought Florence-based football club Fiorentina three years ago. His wife told him that if he insisted on buying a team, it must be nice somewhere. The price was also a bargain for a European club.
The American owner is under scrutiny from Fiorentina fans who demand he pay any costs to bring in the stars and end a 50-year championship drought. Fiorentina, nicknamed “La Viola” – “The Purple” – has not won a league championship since 1969. The fans, known as the Tifosi, got tired of waiting and drove the former owner out of town.
“But they can’t fire Rocco here, you know? They think they’re going to criticize me and fire me. They’re like, no, that can’t happen,” Comizo told 60 Minutes reporter Sharyn Alfonsi. “Rocco is a little different.”
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This difference began with the hustle he learned on the streets of the Bronx. Commisso grew up in southern Italy, but his family moved to the United States to escape poverty. His father and brother crossed the Atlantic first, followed by 12-year-old Commisso, his mother and two sisters.
Commisso, who has a net worth of $8 billion, doesn’t believe he would have been able to achieve the same level of success if he had stayed in Italy.
“No way. This really is a land of opportunity. It gave this poor soul, well, yeah, the chance to become something, someone,” he said. “This is the beauty of America.”
His American dream began with a deal playing the accordion. Then 13, Commiso’s English was terrible, but he played the accordion. He agreed to perform for free in a Bronx theater if the principal helped him get into a Catholic boys’ school, Mount St. Michael’s Academy. The principal sent a letter of recommendation and Commisso was accepted into the school.
“I got lucky or I got bad, whichever way you want to call it,” he said.
Comiso kept noisy. He worked at his family’s lunch before and after school every day to pay for his high school fees.
“So I used to get a dollar an hour,” he said, “and with a dollar an hour I paid for four years of education at Mount St. Michael.”
Commisso wanted to be an engineer, but one dollar an hour wouldn’t cover college tuition, so Commisso looked for a scholarship. He hasn’t played much soccer since coming to the US, but he’s always loved sports, so he turned to it when he needed a scholarship.
Commisso had his athletic instructor contact the NYU coach, who then put Commisso on a team and watched him play for six days.
“He says, ‘Yeah, I love the kid,’” Commisso said. So let’s…let me help him get into NYU,” which he did. And they gave me a 50% scholarship, but it wasn’t enough.” “So I told the gym teacher, ‘Go call the coach at Columbia now.’ Within three to four weeks, they gave me admission to Columbia and a full scholarship.”
Commisso became the team captain and led Columbia University to its first NCAA Tournament.
After graduating with an MBA, Commisso made his way to Wall Street. At night, he helped his brother run a nightclub, where Commisso chose to play Italian pop music.
“I was really into Italian music,” he said, “and I got the idea that by specializing in something rather than being like everyone else, you know, we could do really well.” “And nobody could touch us in terms of competition because nobody had it.”
Commisso carried the same mindset into the cable television industry becoming CEO just as the business exploded. In 1995, he decided to start his own company, called Mediacom.
“What I expected was the fact that sooner or later we’re going to be deregulated, and there’s a great opportunity to do well in the smaller markets in the US, the rural markets, largely because nobody wants it,” he said.
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Commisso risked his life savings to buy small systems. Once again, timing and luck were on his side. Today, Mediacom provides broadband in 22 states. He works alongside his wife, sister and son. Despite the amount of work, Commisso says owning a soccer team is harder.
“I receive more criticism here than in 1,500 communities in the United States,” Commisso said.
There were aggravations, and at times Commisso lost it with the unforgiving press, but the Bronx billionaire never questioned buying the team.
“I made the decision and I will abide by the decision,” he said.
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True to his method, Commisso plays the long game. He’s spending $100 million on Viola Park. Once complete, it will be one of the largest football facilities in Europe for the development of young players.
Back in the United States, he has given millions to his alma mater and contributed scholarships to nearly 3,000 students across the United States, including many first-generation immigrants, like himself.
Despite the costs, Agueta’s season and ACF Fiorentina, Commisso still seemed to love the job. He has become one of the most popular Americans in Italy, but Commisso wants to be known as “Just Rocco”.
He said, “I just want to be known as the man who never changed it, nothing, success.”
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