Jackson became a radio news correspondent for ABC News Radio and sports director of ABC Radio West in 1964 before joining ABC Sports in 1966. He helped Walter Cronkite cover the 1964 Republican National Convention in San Francisco. Professional football In the early 1960s, Jackson covered American Football League games. In 1970, he was chosen to be the first play-by-play announcer on Monday Night Football covering the NFL, but he remained in that capacity only for the program's first season. Frank Gifford was ABC's initial target, but could not get out of his CBS contract until after the 1970 season. In 1971, however, Gifford landed the job. Jackson found out that he had been taken off the Monday Night package from 38 messages, not from Roone Arledge himself. This incident led to some contention between Jackson and the brass at ABC. With Gifford's death in August 2015, Jackson became the last surviving member of the broadcast teams that called MNF games from the early 1970s. Jackson was the lead play-by-play announcer for the United States Football League broadcasts on ABC from 1983 to 1985. He was paired with Lynn Swann and Tim Brant. He called all three championship games in the league's short history. As previously mentioned, for ABC's broadcast of Super Bowl XXII at the end of the 1987 season, Jackson served as the host for the pregame, halftime, and postgame coverage. Olympic Games Jackson was involved in the ABC coverage of the 1972 Summer Olympics and continued to contribute even when an attack by Palestinian terrorists transformed the coverage from that of a typical sporting event to a greater international and historical news event. In all, he covered a total of 10 Summer and Winter Olympic Games. Jackson covered swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics and track and field at the 1976 Summer Olympics. He covered speed-skating during the 1980 Winter Olympics featuring Eric Heiden. He was offered the position of play-by-play for hockey, but turned it down (the position ultimately went to Al Michaels). Jackson called speed skating and ski jumping at the 1984 Winter Olympics. He covered basketball in 1984. He was the weekend afternoon host for ABC's final Olympics in 1988 from Calgary. NBA He was ABC's lead basketball play-by-play announcer (succeeding Chris Schenkel in the role) with legendary NBA player Bill Russell for two years (1971-1973) until ABC lost the NBA broadcasting rights to