More inner workings

From time to time, I'll help get non-Mexican league fans up to speed on what's happened in the league before that may be relevant to helping follow the league now. I decided to take the time to write about the schedule and all that good stuff.

There are 18 teams and everybody plays everyone else during the season, so the season is 17 weeks long. It may be shorter than 17 calendar weeks long because sometimes the league will have midweek games. Typically, most teams play on Saturday. I wrote earlier about how teams play home games at the same times. Well, here's the breakdown (all times are Mexico time/Central time) as well as what network broadcasts their home games (at least here in the US):

Friday
Tecos 6 p.m. (Azteca America)
Veracruz 6 p.m. (Azteca America)

Saturday
Jaguares 3 p.m. (Azteca America)
San Luis 5 p.m. (Galavision)
Monterrey 5 p.m. (Galavision/Telefutura)
Tigres 5 p.m. (Galavision/Telefutura)
Cruz Azul 5 p.m. (Azteca America)
Chivas 7 p.m. (Telefutura)
Pachuca 7 p.m. (Azteca America)
Morelia 7 p.m. (Azteca America)
Atlante 8:30 p.m. (Galavision)
Atlas 8:45 p.m. (Galavision/Telefutura)

Sunday
Pumas noon (Univision)
Toluca noon (Univision)
Necaxa 4 p.m. (Galavision)
America 4 p.m. (Univision/Telefutura)
Santos 4 p.m. (Azteca America)
Puebla 4 p.m. (Azteca America)

There you go. There are some other things to consider.

The league doesn't schedule two teams who play home games on the same network at the same time. For instance, Pumas and Toluca won't both play home games on Sundays at noon on the same weekend.

The Friday thing is new this year. There have been games on Fridays before but it wasn't an every week thing like it is now.

Atlante used to play in the middle of the day on Saturdays. Now that they're in Cancun, they have switched to Saturday nights.

Both Atlas and Atlante games are delayed to start at the top of the hour.

Games start when they're supposed to start. It's not like in MLS where a 7:30 game might not kick off until 7:38 or so. A 5 p.m. game starts at 5 p.m., television be damned.

Midweek games sort of stick to the same guidelines with times but usually most of the games are shown on delay. Typically, only the popular clubs' games are shown live; thus if you're an Atlante fan, you're screwed.