Every American sports fan has a fairly similar agenda Sunday:

To watch the NFL conference championship games.

I haven’t seen one minute of an NFL game since leaving California, in the middle of October. And I won’t be breaking that streak Sunday, unless something weird happens.

Starting with me staying up all night in the bit of Arabia known as the United Arab Emirates.

Ever since the Rams and Raiders fled the Los Angeles market, after the 1994 season, my interest in the National Football League has waned. As it has for millions of sports fans in SoCal.

The regular season, all 16 games and 17 weeks of it, leaves me limp. Unless someone is unbeaten after, say, 13 or 14 games. Then I might start checking in. (Did you notice that both the Colts and Saints lost every regular-season game they had left, after I noted how close they were to 16-0? They were 0-5, between them, after I jinxed them.)

By the time we get to the conference championship games, even Post-Rams/Raiders … this is where I pick up on the league.

Even now, 15 years after my hometown interest in the league evaporated, I probably would agree with the notion that this is the greatest single day on the U.S. sports calendar. The two games, the seven hours of football and the Super Bowl participants identified.

The games this year add to my interest.

Vikings vs. Saints? Brett Favre, Adrian Peterson and that scary looking Vikings coach … vs. Drew Brees, Reggie Bush, that coach known for intricate offenses (Sean Payton, is it?) and the rest of the Saints, attempting to make the Super Bowl for the first time. As opposed to the Vikings, who have been there four times — and lost them all. Minnesota, a great football town, vs. New Orleans, a great football town, a great party town — and the city that rose up again after nature nearly wiped it from the map.

And the other game … the Colts of Peyton Manning (everyone else is just a bit player of varying degrees, behind No. 18) vs. the surprise Jets of Rex Ryan (hmmm, coach listed first), rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez … and a Super Bowl champion of fairly recent vintage (the Colts) against a team that hasn’t appeared in the game since Joe Namath (the Jets).

I would watch those games.

I won’t, however.

The games begin at noon PST and 3:40 p.m. PST … which is midnight and 3:30 a.m. here in Abu Dhabi.

Even if I found the best sports bar in the city, or the most American-centric sports bar … they cannot stay open all night. And I can’t stay up all night when I have to be at work at 2 p.m.

And even if I had access to the games via local television, it would require an advanced cable package … as well as a TV. I have a TV in the Teeny Apartment, but it isn’t hooked up. Because there normally is so little programming available that piques my interest … that we just didn’t bother paying for the dubious pleasure.

My final options would be paying for the games through ESPN … and I might do it just to see, say, the first half of the Colts-Jets game … but the wifi is down in the Teeny Apartment. So I can’t even try to follow it via the internet.

So, unlike the rest of you, I will learn the identity of the Super Bowl participants when I get out of bed Monday morning — but only if the wifi is back up. If it isn’t, I won’t know who won till about 2 a.m. Pacific time, when I get back to the office for another day.

And, for once, I feel badly about not seeing the NFL.