Randy Moss (born 1959) is an American sports announcer and reporter who covers thoroughbred racing, football and Olympics for

NBC Sports NBC Sports is an American programming division for NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, that is responsible for sports broadcasts on their broadcast network NBC, the Cable television, cable channels NBC owns, and on Peacock (streaming service) ...

and the

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

, and until its closure in 2021,

NBCSN NBCSN (also known as NBC Sports Network) was an American sports television television channel, channel owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It originally launched on July 1, 1995, as the Outdoor Lif ...

Early life

Moss was born in 1959, in

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

. He attended horse races at

Oaklawn Park Race Track Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort, formerly Oaklawn Park Race Track, is an American thoroughbred horse race, 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 t ...

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 rac ...

'' 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 university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States. It is the Flagship campus, flagship campus of the University of Arkan ...

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'' 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 in 2022 of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885, by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ' ...

''. 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. Car ...

''. 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'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 ...

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 (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

'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 for

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

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 football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

show jumping Show jumping is a part of a group of English riding equestrian events that also includes eventing, hunters, and equitation. Jumping classes are commonly seen at horse shows throughout the world, including the Olympics. Sometimes shows ar ...

, two

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...

s and multiple

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international Olympic sports, sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a Multi-s ...

(

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

and

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

). 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 announcers American newspaper reporters and correspondents College football announcers College basketball announcers in the United States NFL announcers People from Hot Springs, Arkansas People from Scott County, Minnesota The Dallas Morning News people Olympic Games broadcasters NFL Network people Sportswriters from Arkansas