Football isn't just a pastime in Mexico — it's a national conversation. Surveys suggest more than 70% of Mexicans aged 12 to 60 watch games regularly, and if you're visiting between August and May, you'll hear about it in taxis, cafés and cantinas. Knowing how the league works makes any trip during the season a lot more fun.
Mexico's top flight, Liga MX, has 18 teams and does something unusual for newcomers: it crowns two champions a year. The Apertura (opening) tournament runs from August to December, and the Clausura (closing) runs from January to May. Each one ends with the liguilla, a playoff involving the top eight regular-season finishers. There are quarter-finals, semi-finals and a two-legged final, with each team hosting one match. Draws in the early rounds are decided by who finished higher in the league table; in the final, a tie goes to extra time and then penalties. The drama peaks in December and May, which is when tickets get scarcest.
One structural quirk: promotion and relegation have been suspended. Financial troubles in the second division, worsened by the pandemic, led the league to scrap the system back in 2020. The Ascenso league was rebranded as the Expansión league, and club owners have since agreed not to bring promotion and relegation back — teams now change divisions only through franchise sales.
If you fancy catching a match in person, the big clubs give you plenty of options. In Mexico City you can see Club América (the Águilas, loved and loathed in equal measure) or Cruz Azul at the Aztec Stadium, or Pumas — the UNAM university side, famous for developing young talent — at the Olympic Stadium on campus. Guadalajara's Chivas, who field only Mexican players, are América's eternal rival, and the two fanbases are spread across both cities. Elsewhere: Pachuca (Tuzos) is the country's oldest professional club, thanks to Cornish miners bringing the game to Hidalgo state in the late 1800s. Monterrey hosts one of Mexico's fiercest derbies, with Tigres and Rayados sharing the city, while Toluca's Diablos and Torreón's Santos have been consistently strong. Surprise packages like León, Tijuana and Puebla keep the league competitive.
For TV viewers, many matches air free-to-air on Televisa, TV Azteca and Imagen TV, but an increasing share is locked behind cable, satellite or streaming packages from Fox, ESPN and Televisa's paid channels — a useful thing to know if you're hoping to watch from your hotel room.
Why does this matter for travellers? Timing your city break around a derby — América vs Chivas or the Monterrey clásico — turns an ordinary weekend into a genuine cultural event. Stadiums are family-friendly and atmospheres electric, and even the vocabulary is a nice conversation starter: in Mexico and Central America the word is written 'futbol' without the accent used in South America. Fixtures and standings are online at ligamx.net, so you can check what's on before you book.
