SEC To Exit CBS After 2023 Season

The SEC's premier football TV package will not return to CBS after the 2023 season.

The Sports Business Journal reported Friday night that CBS walked away from negotiations on the league's 15-game package that includes first choice on the best SEC game each week.

CBS Sports confirmed the withdrawal of their bid.

CBS has been paying well below market price during its latest contract with the league ($55 million annually), which began in 2014. SBJ reported that the network's latest bid was "in the neighborhood of $300 million per season."

The report stated, citing multiple sources, that ESPN and ABC are negotiating a deal with the SEC that would pay the league more than $300 million per year, with Fox also scheduled to make a bid.

SEC games have been televised on CBS since 1996, with the SEC Championship Game being added to the slate in 2001. The SEC on CBS has been a mainstay in the college football TV landscape for more than two decades, given the quality of the games along with the adulation of former broadcasting duo Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson.

The SEC on CBS contained three of the top five most-viewed games of the 2019 college football season, according to numbers compiled by Sports Media Watch. That included LSU-Alabama (16.64 million viewers), the SEC Championship Game (13.70 million viewers) and Alabama-Auburn (12.42 million viewers).