ABC, ESPN See Viewership Increase for New Year's Day Bowl Games

Orange Bowl jumps 47%; Rose Bowl down 3% from last year

By Tim Baysinger -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/2/2013 5:42:31 PM

ESPN and ABC's coverage of their New Year's Day College Bowl Games saw mostly increases across the board, with the Orange Bowl being the biggest. The Tuesday night game between Florida State and Northern Illinois drew 10.6 million total viewers, a 47% increase over last year's game.

The game was the most-viewed program of the night on both broadcast and cable, and also saw a 34% increase in coverage rating with a 7.1. The Rose Bowl game, which preceded the Orange Bowl, averaged just over 17 million viewers and a 10.9 coverage rating, which was down 3% and 8%, respectively, from last year. Combined, the Rose and Orange Bowl averaged 13.7 million total viewers, up 11% from last year.

As for ESPN and ABC's early New Year's Day games, the Outback Bowl drew 7.6 million total viewers (+69%) to ESPN and the Capital One Bowl was up 35% for ABC with nearly 11 million total viewers.

College football content on ESPN.com for all of the New Year's Day games generated an average minute audience of nearly 24,000, up 27% over last year.