It is looking like the “SEC on CBS” tradition may be coming to an end.

According to John Ourand and Michael Smith with Sports Business Daily, CBS is walking away from a bidding war to retain the rights to broadcast SEC football. Ourand and Smith reported that CBS currently pays $55 million a year for the game of the week package with the new bid in the range of $300 million. The bidding has reportedly gone past the $300 million mark.

“We made a strong and responsible bid. While we‘ve had success with the SEC on CBS, we are instead choosing to aggressively focus on other important strategic priorities moving forward,” CBS Sports PR told SBJ.

The SBJ report also indicated that ESPN/ABC is working to finalize negotiations for a deal, though FOX Sports is also preparing a bid. As it currently stands, CBS holds the rights for the next four seasons, but there is the possibility those years could be bought out.

Should ESPN take control of all the broadcast rights for the SEC, it will be interesting to see what impact that has on the conference and the College Football Playoff. Those critics of an SEC bias by the network and CFP would likely only get louder.