EVERYTHING CAME UP ROSES FOR ESPN ON NEW YEAR’S DAY

ESPN’s coverage of the 2013 Rose Bowl Game averaged 17.02 million viewers on New Year’s Day, according to ratings released Wednesday by Nielsen Research. The telecast, which saw Stanford defeat Wisconsin 20-14, was down 3 percent from the 17.59 million who watched last year’s Rose Bowl contest, a percentage within Neilsen’s margin of error. During primetime, ESPN’s telecast of the Orange Bowl game between Florida State and Northern Illinois drew 10.56 million viewers, making it the most-watched program of the night on either cable or broadcast TV. That figure, incidentally, was up a whopping 47 percent from the 7.17 million who watched last year’s Orange Bowl game.