Liga MX clubs agree to stop renewing individual TV deals from 2028, clearing path to centralized rights sales

Liga MX's 18 first division clubs have reportedly agreed not to extend their individual television contracts beyond 2028, a move that would let the league begin selling broadcast rights collectively from that year. The report comes from David Medrano, a journalist who collaborates with TV Azteca, and was published on October 21, 2026. Excelsior and other outlets picked it up the same week. Neither the FMF nor Liga MX has confirmed the agreement, and no club executive has commented publicly on it.

Under the reported project, Liga MX itself would negotiate the rights as a single product, with a guaranteed amount for every club. That would be a historic shift. Since the league's creation, clubs have chosen unilaterally how and where their matches are broadcast. The stated aim is a more equitable distribution of resources across the 18 teams, plus performance bonuses for the best-performing sides.

The hardest part is still open. Medrano was clear that how the money gets divided remains unresolved. Clubs must decide what share is split equally and what percentages follow sporting achievements and targets, a discussion he said they have two years to settle. That timeline runs from the reported agreement in October 2026 to the 2028 start date.

The direction itself is not new. In May 2023, the league's ordinary assembly of clubs approved a mandate to centralize broadcast rights and commercial sponsorships in Mexico, the United States and the rest of the world. FMF commissioner Mikel Arriola has kept the goal public, dating the board authorization to May 22, 2023. At the Expansion Summit in September 2026, he said the board had authorized centralizing television rights and that it gives new push to the league's value.

Arriola has also put a number on the prize. At the same summit, he said Liga MX was worth more than $13 billion and estimated the television rights property at approximately $9 billion. FootBiz notes those are management estimates rather than valuations established through completed transactions. The Apollo Global Management proposal, which collapsed at the owners' assembly on December 13, 2024 for lack of unanimity, would have invested $1.3 billion for 10 percent of a new league company built around collective media rights from 2028.

The real test is the clubs that earn the most on their own. Coverage of the report puts Chivas at more than $40 million a year from individual deals, between Amazon Prime Video for home matches in Mexico and Telemundo in the United States. Clubs in that position have historically resisted pooling, since a shared formula could pay them less than their current contracts. Whether they accept the final split is the question the next two years will answer.

For American viewers, the change could be significant. US rights are currently negotiated team by team and sit across TelevisaUnivision and ViX, Telemundo and Peacock, FOX Deportes and FOX One, and ESPN Deportes. Medrano's report does not specify whether the 2028 cap covers US deals, although the 2023 mandate did include the United States and the rest of the world. If a collective sale eventually includes a US package, the league could be sold to American audiences as one product instead of 18 separate negotiations.

There is precedent for clubs going their own way. Leon was the first Liga MX club to sell its rights to more than one provider, doing so in 2011 after seven rounds of negotiations with TV Azteca failed. The club, then owned by Grupo Pachuca and Grupo Carso, sold to Fox Sports, Claro Sports and Grupo Editorial Expansion. Since then, different clubs have sold rights in Mexico to multiple companies. That fragmented history is exactly what the 2028 project would unwind.