Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media…

Keith Jackson: Dan Levy of the Bleacher Report ranked the top 25 voices of college football. He asked me and others for some input. You could debate some of his choices (Jesse Palmer at 23, but no Bill Flemming?), but there’s no doubt about No. 1.

Jackson was bigger than the game itself in many ways, helping to introduce the sport of amateur football to millions and millions of fans across two or three generations. 

If the history of college football were a storybook, Keith Jackson would be its narrator.

Just to prod your memory, here’s Jackson’s open to the 2006 BCS title game.

Johnny Manziel: Michael Bradley of the National Sports Journalism Center sees media hypocrisy in its coverage of the quarterback.

The mere idea of “Johnny Cam” demonstrates to what lengths networks will go to capitalize on Manziel’s allure. Chronicling a player’s every movement proves definitively that the game is less important than any potential drama Manziel can provide. If we need any further evidence that companies and individuals are making enormous sums of money by exploiting college athletes’ exploits, then we aren’t paying attention. Manziel is powerless to tell CBS that he is not interested in 360-degree coverage, and A&M is not about to turn down an opportunity to feature its most marketable asset.

ESPN’s competition: It’s not Fox Sport 1. Dave Warner at Awful Announcing writes that it is a la carte cable.

As one cable industry lobbyist told the Times, “On à la carte, there was no stronger opponent than Disney and ESPN.” Indeed, à la carte cable just might be ESPN’s biggest competition — certainly far bigger than Fox Sports 1. That’s because, thanks to the bundle, the 90 million or so customers who get Fox Sports 1 with their TV subscriptions still pay for ESPN, and at a rate of $5.54/month, according to the latest data from SNL Kagan, which far outpaces the $0.23/month that carriers forced Fox to accept last month.

Monday night doubleheader: Brad Gagnon at Awful Announcing enjoyed seeing two games on Monday night. He wishes it was a regular occurrence.

And every year in Week 1, we get an extra serving of prime-time, nationally-televised football when ESPN turns Monday Night Football into a doubleheader. Football from 7 p.m. until 1 a.m. ET is just glorious, which has me wondering why that hasn’t become a weekly staple yet. 

It makes sense for everyone. You’d only be stealing a total of a handful of games away from CBS and FOX, but another permanent prime-time national spot would give teams and players more exposure while giving fans more football to watch and adding to the league’s profit margin. Because I can guarantee ESPN (or anyone) would be willing to pay big bucks for the extra 15 games (they’d be much more valuable Monday night than Sunday afternoon).

Randy Moss: Phil Mushnick of the New York Post is not a big fan of Fox Sports hiring the ex-receiver.

Even by current, sorrowfully diminished TV standards — the hideously thoughtless identification, rewarding and marketing of sports’ worst acts as the most preferred — FOX’s hiring of Moss as a studio analyst is extraordinary, a sick, twisted parody come real.

There was a reason, after all, that Moss, an enormously talented wide receiver, was treated as an expendable by six different teams until kaput. So antisocial, selfish and dismissive of the most rudimentary sense of right from wrong was Moss that even after the Vikings assigned him his personal baby-sitter, fellow WR Cris Carter, he was unable to lift himself from his own, self-brewed extract.

That FOX even considered Moss for any kind of on-air gig, let alone handed him a pen to sign on, is a kick in the groin to all of us who still hope that some sport — any sport — might one day be returned to our sports.

Brian Urlacher: Vaughn McClure of the Chicago Tribune talks to the former Bears LB about making the transition to TV.

Gradually, Urlacher has adjusted to his new occupation as an analyst for Fox Sports 1. He will be a part of the “Fox NFL Kickoff” crew Sunday morning.

“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do TV because the media side gets a little tricky,” he said. “But I wanted to try it out. And I’ve actually enjoyed myself a whole bunch.”

Marty Glickman: This ran a few weeks ago, but wanted to note Phil Mushnick of the New York Post on what made Glickman so great.

Glickman worked — and worked hard — to provide radio, TV and even newsreel calls that were rich in practical descriptions and phrases. His “style” — what still distinguishes him in the minds of those who used manhole covers for second base or swapped NYC bus transfers to save 15 cents — was that he simultaneously could inform, hold and enthrall an audience with brevity and accuracy.

His “shtick,” you should excuse the term, was that he worked shtickless — unless one counts phrases that he alone developed for only their immediate clarity and usefulness.

Thus, while calling Giants’ games on WNEW-AM, Alex Webster, Ernie Wheelwright and Ernie Koy would “take the handoff and go off left tackle for a couple-or-three yards.” We could “see” Phil King and Steve Thurlow straining, falling forward for those last three feet.

Bev Norwood: Joe Logan of MyPhillygolf.com remembers the long-time golf PR man for IMG, who was quite a character.

He was diminutive man, wiry and wry, with a drawl from having grown up in North Carolina. He was also the source of a constant stream of commentary and wisecracks on golf and golfers, life in general and anybody who happened to wander into his field of vision. At tournaments, in the media center, Bev wouldn’t so much hold court as he would walk from one writer of cluster of writers to another, confirming or debunking rumors, or delivering the latest Tiger news that was suitable for public consumption, or just catching up on gossip.

One of his best friends was the legendary Dan Jenkins and the two of them (and oftentimes one or two others) would find a corner in the dining room of the media center, a couple of old-timers watching the world go by.  You could see them people-watching, then nodding in apparent agreement over something or somebody, or perhaps just over the absurdity of it all.