Policyband

WOW's Japanese Buyer Asks for Swift FCC Merger Review

Masayoshi Son's Softbank Corp. is paying $4 billion to acquire WOW! parent DigitalBridge Group

Ted Hearn

Mar 17, 2026 — 10 min read

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WOW!: WideOpenWest (WOW!) was sold last year and now it is being sold again. Softbank Corp., a $150 billion technology investment firm whose largest individual shareholder is Japanese citizen Masayoshi Son, is seeking FCC approval to acquire DigitalBridge Group, WOW!’s majority owner. The minority owner, with 37% equity interest, is Crestview Partners run by CEO and Co-Founder Barry Volpert. (Crestview Vice-Chairman is Jeff Marcus, an early cable investor who sold Marcus Cable to Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen in 1998 in a $2.8 billion deal.). The FCC approved DigitalBridge’s acquisition of WOW! on Dec. 19, 2025. That deal had an enterprise value of $1.5 billion, most of it debt. Two days before the deal closed on Dec. 31, Softbank announced it was buying DigitalBridge for $4 billion, making WOW!’s corporate parent a Japanese entity. (More after paywall)