12 minute read
Giuseppe B. Commisso '00 | Full Time Focus: Vittoria
SOCCER
It was a moment when Giuseppe B. Commisso more fully understood his celebrity status in Italy. He had just posted a picture on Instagram of him and his girlfriend, Erica, enjoying a meal at Alpemare Beach Club in Forte dei Marmi, a seaside town in Tuscany, Italy. The already attentive service seemed to grow even more gracious, and then the beach club’s owners, world-renowned tenor Andrea Bocelli and his wife, visited them at their table. Bocelli grew up in Tuscany and happens to be a fan of Italian soccer. Giuseppe’s father is the owner of ACF Fiorentina, based in Florence and the most successful first division professional soccer team in the Tuscan region. Giuseppe was a very welcome special guest. This is the case for owners of professional soccer clubs throughout Europe. But depending on a team’s success, or lack of, fans are fickle—supportive and joyous when their team is winning but raucous and harsh when a season is souring.
Fiorentina fans were not at all happy in the spring of 2019 as the team was struggling and ranked in 16th place in the Serie A League. When Giuseppe’s father, Rocco B. Commisso, purchased the team in June of that year, fans had great hope that the Commisso family would turn things around. Giuseppe moved to Italy and joined Fiorentina’s board. Joe Barone was brought on board as the general manager, bringing years of experience in running a professional team (the New York Cosmos), developing players, and building relationships. After trials and tribulations continued through several coaches and their ranking lacked much upward movement, Commisso and Barone hired Vincenzo Italiano as head coach in 2021. Under Italiano’s lead, Fiorentina finished as high as 7th place and played in two consecutive UEFA Conference League finals, in 2023 and 2024, setting a league record. However, the team lost both European finals, and, this June, Italiano left the club. He was replaced by new head coach Raffaele Palladino, who successfully coached another Italian Serie A team, AC Monza, from 2022 to 2024.
Fans are fickle—one day they love you, the next day they don’t. WE’VE BEEN ABLE TO MANAGE THE TIDE SO FAR. They like what we’ve done with Rocco B. Commisso Viola Park and the team.
While managing coaching staff and players was an immediate priority in 2019, so was building a new stadium and a new training facility. The Artemio Franchi Stadium, built in 1931, was updated to increase capacity in the late 1980s, but the facility is outdated. Working through the Florentine bureaucracy on a stadium plan, however, proved to be an incredibly slow and challenging process. So, the Commisso family focused all of its efforts on building a new sporting center, Rocco B. Commisso Viola Park, which is the largest sporting center in Italy and among the largest in all of Europe. In addition, it is currently the only training facility at the highest level of Italian soccer that accommodates both male and female players.
Completed in 2023, the club’s new sporting center is truly an exceptional complex. With facilities for all age groups, Rocco B. Commisso Viola Park is a community campus with every amenity. Spanning 64 acres, the new sporting center includes 12 buildings with 312,000 square feet of space, 12 regulation pitches, 2 stadiums with 4,500-person seating capacity, dormitories to sleep 116, a media center, swimming pool, and state-of-the-art training and medical facilities (including MRI and cryotherapy), all tucked into the hills surrounding Florence. It is the perfect combination of classic Tuscany and ultramodern technology. Besides being the permanent home to 20 Fiorentina men’s, women’s and youth teams, Rocco B. Commisso Viola Park draws visitors from all over the world including Italy’s national soccer team.
The treatment of women in Italy is getting better, but women in sports are far more advanced in America. Title IX revolutionized women’s experiences in American sports, and WE’VE BROUGHT THOSE VALUES TO ITALY in Rocco B. Commisso Viola Park.
EDUCATION and the AMERICAN DREAM
Perhaps Giuseppe has always been destined for fame in the international world of soccer.
His father, Rocco, emigrated with his parents from Italy to America when he was a young boy. After attending high school at Mount Saint Michael Academy in the Bronx, Rocco attended Columbia University on a full scholarship, playing soccer and earning a reputation as the “toughest” player in the Ivy League. Columbia University’s Hall of Fame shares this about Rocco: “He helped guide the team to a four-year winning record and was co-captain of the first-ever Columbia squad to advance to the NCAA Tournament, scoring 9 goals in 8 games as a center-forward. 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.”
While these accomplishments are notable, more importantly, his Columbia education led to a successful media career at Cablevision Industries before he launched his own company, Mediacom Communications, in 1995. In 2000, he directed a successful initial public offering for Mediacom and grew the company into the nation’s 5th largest cable television operator. Business aside, there was always time for soccer, and Rocco regularly brought Giuseppe to games. The younger Commisso became a fan of the Columbia Lions and Serie A soccer, and he cheered for Italy alongside his dad at the 1994 World Cup.
Giuseppe also followed in his father’s footsteps to benefit from a private school education. His older sister, Marisa, had enrolled at Tuxedo Park School in Tuxedo Park, New York, and he made the same move from a public grade school to start at the private school in 6th grade; by 9th grade he was one of five students in his class. The low student-teacher ratio and personal attention led to better educational opportunities and deep relationships with his teachers—something Giuseppe knew he wanted to continue in his high school experience. When it came time to make his choice for 10th grade, Millbrook was at the top of his list because the school aligned with his values for success and educational development. Plus, Millbrook was located on a beautiful campus in picturesque Dutchess County, and it reminded him of his home across the Hudson River.
Giuseppe took full advantage of every opportunity to get involved at Millbrook, and his passion for community-building earned him the Founders’ Prize, given to a fifth form student who has displayed an enthusiasm for life’s challenges, a creative and innovative spirit, and a commitment to the community and team play. While he was a curious student who loved math and fondly recalls every academic teacher during his three years, he relishes his memories made outside of the classrooms. He signed up for the NOAA (National Weather Service) community service, waking up at the break of dawn to gather and report weather data. He joined the boys varsity hockey squad as their team manager, working closely with then Head Coach Bob Howe, tracking team statistics, gathering and distributing uniforms, filling water bottles, and chasing down hundreds of errant pucks under the bleachers in the ice rink. He built relationships with all the players and staff as well as many members of Millbrook’s physical plant team, enjoying conversations before and after Zamboni runs in between periods. This included Millbrook’s current head of school, Jon Downs, who was a player on the team. Giuseppe also played soccer, golf, and lacrosse and ran cross-country.
Three years felt like a very long time, and THE TEACHERS AND STAFF WERE THE HALLMARK of my experience. It’s the people who define the Millbrook experience.
TRIP of a LIFETIME
When an academic and service trip opened to students in the spring of 1998 during Giuseppe’s first year, he knew that this could be the trip of his young life.
Biology teacher Dr. H. Bruce Rinker had inspired countless students to become better stewards of the natural world, and this two-week trip included stops in Iquitos, Peru, a northern camp in the Amazon close to the borders of Peru and Ecuador, and Machu Picchu. In Iquitos, the Millbrook travelers had an up-close and personal look at the culture and life of those far less fortunate. They also studied the importance of the rainforest canopy and the impact of deforestation, which provided completely different lessons tied to protecting all threatened life in the Amazon.
Machu Picchu was the most physically demanding part of the trip, and Giuseppe’s love of data inspired him to devise a way to count the total steps taken during their three-day hike along with the altitude and barometric pressure at various points up and down the mountain terrain.
COLLEGE and CAREER
In the fall of his senior year, guidance from the College Counseling Office, led by then director Liz Duhoski, contributed to Giuseppe’s application, acceptance, and enrollment at Columbia University, made even more special by his deep connection and childhood visits to campus with his father.
He entered Columbia intending to major in computer engineering with a focus on artificial intelligence. His academic journey, however, was marked by influential professors like Jeffrey D. Sachs, who headed up the university’s Earth Institute and whose work on sustainable development ultimately inspired Giuseppe to shift his engineering focus. Giuseppe graduated from Columbia in 2006 with a civil engineering degree and minors in economics and earth and environmental engineering.
At Columbia, he and some close friends co-founded Columbia’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders, which remains active today. With this group he participated in projects to improve water quality on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He furthered his passion for data analysis and environmental issues through an internship at the Columbia Earth Institute focused on climate change; Nobel Prize winner Edmund S. Phelps worked in an adjacent office.
Altogether, his time at Columbia was defined by academic rigor, personal growth, and a commitment to making a difference, and after graduating Giuseppe joined his family business at Mediacom in a full-time role. Starting as an analyst in data metrics and key performance indicators, he advanced to lead the data warehouse team, ensuring accurate data analytics and reporting of Mediacom’s daily customer activity. He developed data models, customer reports, and commission reports, focusing on data mining, probability, and statistics.
Knowing that comprehensive industry experience was important, Giuseppe undertook technician training, field tours, and lobbying in Washington, D.C., where he met with U.S. legislators, FCC officials, and executives from companies like Comcast, Charter, and Time Warner. His father’s strategic acquisitions and resilience during economic downturns have inspired his own approach to business. Notably, Giuseppe recalls the challenges the once public Mediacom faced when taking the company private in 2011; working with his father at that time, it was a move that allowed them to overcome challenges within the board and ultimately ensure the company’s financial strength.
As group vice president of Corporate Finance, Giuseppe now helps to oversee investments and corporate initiatives. His leadership in AI integration and strategic planning helps to drive the company’s innovation for underserved populations in smaller cities and towns across 22 states. Giuseppe also serves on the board of JMCC Corporation, the parent company of Mediacom, contributing to high-level decision-making and corporate strategy.
SPORTS and the GLOBAL MARKETPLACE
Beyond media, Giuseppe navigates the complex sports industry that is Italian soccer and sees the stark contrast between American and European sports models.
In Europe, the promotion/relegation system demotes the bottom three teams in the league after every season, affecting their valuation and player retention. In contrast, American professional sports— football, soccer, baseball, hockey, and basketball—maintain their league status and profitability despite poor performance.
As a board member for ACF Fiorentina, Giuseppe has regular insights into the challenges of running a professional team: balancing player salaries and managing investments wisely with the goal to buy players at a low cost and sell them at a higher value. This strategy proved successful with top players like Dušan Vlahović and Federico Chiesa, who were both sold by Fiorentina to Juventus for high valuations in recent years. However, the soccer business is complex, involving agents who earn hefty commissions and players constantly seeking to move to higher-tier teams. Additionally, turnover is a significant challenge in soccer, with players’ careers typically ending in their mid-30s. This dynamic forces some players to seek lucrative contracts in places like Saudi Arabia, as Cristiano Ronaldo did.
The amount of money made—even FIFA WORLD CUP CAN’T COMPARE TO THE REVENUE COMING OUT OF THE NFL. They’ve been able to get people to pay a lot of money to watch—whether on TV, streaming or at the stadium—and about half of the NFL revenue is going to the players.
Between his ever-increasing responsibilities at Mediacom and his role on the board of ACF Fiorentina, Giuseppe’s days are undoubtedly interesting and challenging. The company remains focused on providing exceptional broadband services across its markets, which includes the continued rollout of 10G high-speed internet technologies and expansion into the mobile phone business. In terms of Fiorentina and what success looks like for the team, it’s simple: get to the UEFA Conference League finals again in 2025, win the championship, and raise the first European trophy since 1961. That is the goal, and Giuseppe promises fireworks and a BIG celebration. Stay tuned!
