Arash Markazi is a sports columnist at the Los Angeles Times and a regular contributor to AM 570 LA Sports. He has covered everything from the Super Bowl and World Series to the World Cup and Wimbledon.

Markazi, who has also written for ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Slam, King, Vibe and Playboy, is an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and is on the board of directors for the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation.

After graduating from Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, Calif., Markazi attended the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and later the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California. He wrote a regular column for the Daily Trojan and also had his work published in several magazines and newspapers while at USC, including the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Daily News. He graduated with a degree in Print Journalism from USC in 2004. While at USC, Markazi won the Allan Malamud Memorial Scholarship and the Jim Murray Memorial Scholarship, named after his two favorite sports columnists at the Los Angeles Times.

Markazi was hired by Sports Illustrated out of college and appeared on the cover of the March 31, 2005 issue of Sports Illustrated on Campus. He soon began writing a weekly column for Sports Illustrated's website, SI.com. Markazi's intimate and quirky portraits of Wayne Gretzky, Ronaldo, Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush prompted the Los Angeles Times to name him one of the "Faces to Watch" in 2006.

After five years as a staff writer at Sports Illustrated, Markazi joined ESPN to help launch ESPNLA.com in 2009 before becoming a senior writer at ESPN. He left ESPN in 2019 to become a sports columnist at the Los Angeles Times, his dream job growing up.

He is a two-time cancer survivor and a cancer advocate. He is a Global Ambassador for Quest 40 Cure, which seeks to eradicate pediatric cancer and register new bone marrow donors.