Matt writes about what he did (or didn't do) for the Super Bowl at his blog, noting that
"Earliest one I remember seeing is from 1984 when the LA Raiders annihilated Washington."
I found that interesting because that's the earliest Super Bowl I remember. In fact, that's the earliest sports championship I remember. (Note: Matt used the year of the game, not the season. I'm going to continue that convention)
After the 1984 and 1985 Super Bowl, however, I'm sketchy until it 49ers beat up on the Giants in 1989. From then on, I'm good.
The next earliest sporting championship I remember is the 1984 World Series, partially because the Tigers were there and I watched/listened to near every game that season. I was a bigger baseball fan so I watched and remember every World Series until the one that didn't happen in 1994. This was also the first year I was away at the University of Arizona and really didn't follow any professional sports very closely (well, I guess we did that NFL pick 'em bit leading up to the '96 and '97 Super Bowls so that, I suppose, counts. But I can't say if I watched any actual games or not.) I didn't get a paper and, as I remember it, the availabilty of scores and stats on-line was pretty sparse. I didn't get back into baseball until 1999, which was when the first Down With league started though I'll credit the thrilling post-season with really hooking me in.
I don't remember any NBA Championships until 1988 when the Pistons lost. They won the next two years so I was hooked... well, at least through the 1993 season (Suns lost.) There is a large memory gap until the second Lakers championship (against the 76ers) in 2001.
For the NCAA tournament the earliest one I remember is counterintuitively not the Michigan win in 1989 (yes, I am very ashamed to admit this) but the UNLV win over Duke the next year. After that I'm good through the present except for odd gaps where the two Kentucky wins should be (1996 and 1998); (not so) strangely I remember the last Kentucky loss quite clearly. And, just to be clear, I'm talking about remembering the tournament as well as the final.
I suppose one might count NCAA football bowl games here in which case I'd point to the 1987 Rose Bowl (Michigan-USC.) After that, starting say 1990 I began watching more college football, including as many bowl games as I could. This was one practice that didn't see a dry spell during the college years; partially because I was in college, partially because I was starting to like college sports more than professional sports, partially because the bowl season was over winter break anyway.
I remember the 1984 Olympics, the 1998 World Cup (I want to say I remember the 1994 one but I'm probably wrong) and that's about it. I don't remember any NHL finals, even the ones with the Red Wings. I have never cared about tennis (I don't even know if they have anything one would count here,) golf, boxing, any sort of racing, the College World Series, Little League World Series or anything else.
