Randy Moss (born 1959 in

Hot Springs, Arkansas Hot Springs is a resort city in the state of Arkansas and the county seat of Garland County. The city is located in the Ouachita Mountains among the U.S. Interior Highlands, and is set among several natural hot springs for which the city is n ...

) is an American sports announcer and reporter who currently covers thoroughbred racing, football and Olympics for

NBC Sports NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its d ...

NBC Sports Network NBCSN was an American sports television channel owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It originally launched on July 1, 1995, as the Outdoor Life Network (OLN), which was dedicated to programming prim ...

and

NFL Network NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League (NFL) and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and NFL ...

Early life

A native of Hot Springs, Arkansas, Moss attended horse races at

Oaklawn Park Race Track Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort, formerly Oaklawn Park Race Track, is an American thoroughbred racetrack and casino in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It is the home to "The Racing Festival of the South", a four-day series of races that concludes with the A ...

during his youth, often sneaking into the track despite being underage. During high school and college he assisted ''

Daily Racing Form The ''Daily Racing Form'' (DRF) (referred to as the ''Racing Form'' or "Form" and sometimes "telegraph" or "telly") is a tabloid newspaper founded in 1894 in Chicago, Illinois, by Frank Brunell. The paper publishes the past performances of race ...

'' columnist Don Grisham on an Oaklawn handicapping column in the ''

Arkansas Gazette The ''Arkansas Gazette'' was a newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, that was published from 1819 to 1991. It was known as the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi River. It was located from 1908 until its closing at the now historic Gazette ...

''. Moss then spent one semester in pharmacy school at the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...

before ''Gazette'' sports editor Orville Henry hired him to work for the paper full time.

Print

In 1984, Moss left the ''Gazette'' for the ''

Arkansas Democrat The ''Arkansas Democrat-Gazette'' is the newspaper of record in the U.S. state of Arkansas, printed in Little Rock with a northwest edition published in Lowell. It is distributed for sale in all 75 of Arkansas' counties. By virtue of one of i ...

'' after the ''Democrat'' offered to double his salary due to his popularity as a handicapper. From 1989 to 1995 he worked for ''

The Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''Galvesto ...

''. Moss left journalism in 1995 and returned home to work as the director of operations for Oaklawn. In 1996, Moss returned to sports writing as a reporter for the ''

Fort Worth Star-Telegram The ''Fort Worth Star-Telegram'' is an American daily newspaper serving Fort Worth and Tarrant County, the western half of the North Texas area known as the Metroplex. It is owned by The McClatchy Company. History In May 1905, Amon G. Carter acc ...

''. He left the ''Star-Telegram'' in 1999 after he subbed as an ESPN analyst for that year's Preakness Stakes coverage and subsequently was offered a full-time job by the network. For thirty years, Moss has been part of

Andrew Beyer Andrew Beyer (born 17 Nov 1943) is an American expert on horse race betting who designed the Beyer Speed Figure. In the early 1970s, while working for the ''Washington Daily News'', Beyer did extensive work on the concept of speed figures and w ...

's team that calculates for ''

'' the iconic

Beyer Speed Figure The Beyer Speed Figure is a system for rating the performance of Thoroughbred racehorses in North America designed in the early 1970s by Andrew Beyer, the syndicated horse racing columnist for The Washington Post. First published in book form in 1 ...

s, a mathematical index measuring racehorse speed that is widely considered the most popular handicapping tool in thoroughbred racing. He also created the "Moss Pace Figures" published online by ''

''.

Television

In June 1999, Moss became

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

's primary horse racing analyst. In August 2008, he joined the

, where for three years he was studio host for "Team Cam" and "Around the League" and now is primarily a remote reporter. In 2011, Moss began as an analyst for the

Triple Crown Triple Crown may refer to: Sports Horse racing * Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing * Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing (United States) ** Triple Crown Trophy ** Triple Crown Productions * Canadian Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing * Trip ...

for

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

and

and now covers horse racing exclusively for those networks. In addition to his horse racing analyst duties, Moss has handled reporter, host or play-by-play duties for a wide variety of other sports broadcasts on the NBC family of networks including college football, college basketball, golf, show jumping, two Super Bowls and multiple Olympic games (

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

and

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

). For Olympic coverage, he has been assigned to equestrian sports, ski jumping, freestyle skiing, water polo, whitewater canoeing and kayaking, synchronized swimming, and race walking.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moss, Randy 1959 births Living people American horse racing commentators American newspaper reporters and correspondents American sportswriters College football announcers College basketball announcers in the United States National Football League announcers People from Hot Springs, Arkansas People from Scott County, Minnesota The Dallas Morning News people Olympic Games broadcasters