Liga MX

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Liga MX, Mexico's top professional football league, draws larger average crowds than any other football competition in the Americas. During the 2014-15 season, the league averaged 25,557 fans per match. That figure puts it ahead of every other football league on the continent, and it ranks third among all professional sports leagues in North America by attendance. Yet for the average listener outside Mexico, this competition remains largely unknown territory. How did a league that began with just ten clubs in 1943 become the dominant force in CONCACAF? Why does it crown two champions per season rather than one? And what was the legal battle that, as recently as September 2025, forced a fundamental change to the league's structure? Those are the questions this documentary sets out to answer.

• 2. From Regional Clubs to a National League

  ›

  The Liga Mexicana de Football Amateur Association was created in 1902 as a local competition for clubs near Mexico City. It was Mexico's first organised football league, though it was strictly amateur and geographically confined. Over the following decades, other regional competitions followed: the Liga Amateur de Veracruz, the Liga Amateur de Puebla, the Liga Occidental De Jalisco, and the Liga Amateur del Bajío. None of these crossed regional boundaries.

  In 1922, a governing body for Mexican football was formally established, and with it came the Campeonato de Primera Fuerza, the first amateur league run by a national federation. It operated from 1922 to 1943, though most of its clubs came from Mexico City. Matches outside the capital did not occur until the 1940-41 season.

  Many club owners of that era were willing to keep the sport amateur in name while paying players quietly under the table. That arrangement could not hold as interest in football grew. The Federación Mexicana de Fútbol announced the country's first true professional and national league in 1943, the Liga Mayor. Ten clubs were invited to join: six from the Mexico City amateur league, two from the Liga Occidental, and two from the Liga Veracruzana. The founding ten were ADO, América, Asturias, Atlante, Atlas, Guadalajara, Veracruz Sporting, Necaxa, Marte, and Moctezuma. Asturias won that inaugural 1943-44 season, a title that stands as the only one in the club's history.

• 3. The Liguilla Revolution

  ›

  Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, small clubs struggled financially. The league format at the time offered little reward to clubs that finished respectably but not at the very top, and Mexico's clubs were cut off from the revenue that continental competition could provide. Clubs that placed well enough to enter tournaments like the Copa Libertadores often could not afford to participate.

  The 1970 FIFA World Cup, held in Mexico, was the first World Cup to be televised on a large scale. The visibility it brought to football changed how the FMF thought about the domestic competition. The season following the World Cup, the federation introduced the liguilla, a final knockout phase to determine the champions rather than simply awarding the title to the club with the most points.

  The original liguilla used a straight knockout between the top eight clubs, though the format shifted from season to season. Sometimes groups were used, with the top two finishers in each group advancing. At other times, the best third-placed clubs were also included. The format was adjusted to work around international club commitments and the Mexico national team schedule.

  The effect was immediate and significant. Clubs that had not excelled in the regular season could now compete for the title in the final phase. Cruz Azul benefited from this in the 1970s, América in the 1980s, and Toluca in the 2000s. Clubs near bankruptcy found that a deep run in the liguilla could generate the revenue they needed to survive. The tension between traditionalists, who preferred the old table-based system, and modernists who embraced the playoff format played out over many seasons, but the liguilla survived and became the defining feature of the competition.

• 4. The Split-Season Structure

  ›

  Liga MX runs two separate tournaments within a single calendar year. The Apertura runs from July to December, and the Clausura runs from January to May. Each tournament produces its own champion, meaning a single year can crown two different clubs. This schedule was designed to align with the FIFA world football calendar, which formally opens in July and closes in April of the following year.

  Between 1996 and 2002, the two tournaments were called the Invierno and Verano. From 2002 to 2011, the 18 clubs were split into three groups of six, with the top two from each group and the two best third-place clubs advancing to the liguilla. Clubs played in the same group across both tournaments, and the qualification phase ran for 17 weeks.

  The current format has 18 clubs on a single table. The top six at the end of the regular phase advance directly to the quarterfinals of the liguilla. Clubs ranked seven through ten enter a play-in round: the seventh and eighth-placed teams meet in a single match hosted by the higher seed, and the winner advances as the seventh seed. The loser faces the winner of the match between ninth and tenth place, with the winner taking the eighth seed. From the quarterfinals onward, ties are played over two legs, with the club advancing on aggregate score.

  If two clubs finish the regular season with equal points, the tiebreakers proceed through goal difference, goals scored, away goals, head-to-head results, quotient table standing, and fair play points before a draw of lots is used as a last resort.

• 5. Relegation and Its Suspension

  ›

  For most of the league's history, one club was relegated at the end of each season and replaced by a promoted club from the second division. The calculation was not based on a single season's results but on the points-per-game ratio across the previous three seasons, covering six short tournaments. A recently promoted club was only assessed on the games it had played since promotion.

  Prior to the 2017-18 season, new rules were added requiring any promoted club to meet infrastructure requirements, including a suitable stadium and a functioning youth team. If a promoted club could not meet those requirements, the relegated Liga MX club was obligated to pay MXN$120 million to the Ascenso MX club and remain in the top division. As of the 2018-19 season, only six clubs met the full requirements for promotion: Atlético San Luis, Atlante, Celaya, Juárez, Sinaloa, and UdeG.

  On the 16th of April 2020, the second division, Ascenso MX, was dissolved. Liga MX president Enrique Bonilla announced that promotion and relegation would be suspended for six years, citing the COVID-19 pandemic and financial pressures. A replacement competition, the Liga de Expansión MX, was created, but no club could move between it and Liga MX during the suspension.

  In May 2025, ten clubs from the Liga de Expansión MX filed a lawsuit with the Court of Arbitration for Sport seeking the reinstatement of promotion and relegation. Four clubs later withdrew; the remaining six formed a bloc whose first success was blocking the proposed relocation of Celaya F.C. to Veracruz and a certificate transfer between Cimarrones de Sonora and Club Jaiba Brava. On the 4th of September 2025, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled in their favour, ordering the return of relegation starting with the 2026-27 season.

• 6. Record Holders and Playing Legends

  ›

  América holds sixteen league titles, the most of any club, with its most recent coming in the Apertura 2024. Guadalajara and Toluca each hold twelve titles. Cruz Azul follows with ten, and Tigres UANL and León each hold eight. In total, twenty-four clubs have won the league at least once across 114 editions.

  Among individual players, Óscar Pérez holds the record for appearances in the league, having played 741 matches between 1993 and 2019. Oswaldo Sánchez made 725 appearances across a career spanning 1993 to 2014, while Benjamín Galindo appeared 700 times between 1979 and 2001. Juan Pablo Rodríguez, Jesús Corona, and Rodrigo Ruiz round out the top six, with Corona still active as of 2025 with 682 appearances to his name.

  The official match ball has been manufactured by Voit since 1986. BBVA México has been the league's main sponsor since the rebranding in 2012. In July 2013, league president Decio De María stated that sponsorship revenue would be distributed among all 18 clubs and invested in their youth academies, connecting top-level commercial agreements directly to grassroots development.

• 7. Broadcast Reach

  ›

  Liga MX ranks second in television viewership in the United States, behind only the English Premier League. That standing reflects decades of rights negotiations across two countries and multiple languages.

  In Mexico, broadcast rights are held by Televisa, TV Azteca, Imagen Televisión, Claro Sports, Fox Sports, and ESPN, among others. Saturday afternoon games on Televisa air primarily on Gala TV, while América matches on Saturdays move to Canal de las Estrellas, Televisa's flagship channel. TV Azteca airs its Saturday and Sunday games on Azteca 13; Friday matches go to Azteca 7. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday fixtures, known in Mexico as Fecha Doble, air on Canal 5 and Azteca 7, with the remainder on Sky Sports and TDN.

  In the United States, ESPN Deportes, Fox Deportes, Univision, and Telemundo share broadcast rights. The scale of Univision's position was illustrated in September 2017, when the network acquired rights to Lobos BUAP's matches, giving it the broadcast rights to all 18 Liga MX clubs for the first time. That monopoly ended in October 2017 when Fox Sports acquired long-term exclusive Spanish-language rights to Tijuana and Santos Laguna matches.

  A rule introduced in 2011 requires the final match of every season to be played on Sunday during prime time, regardless of a club's usual timeslot. The rule was designed to maximise television audiences and reduce the risk of playoff collusion, where teams already secure in the liguilla might otherwise play below full effort to engineer a more favourable draw. Jesús Corona's continued presence in the top-ten appearances list, still active in 2025, suggests the league's talent pool keeps replenishing even as its broadcast footprint expands year by year.