Why Does the Mexico National Team Play the Majority of its Games in the U.S.?

El Tri is often in action in the biggest stadiums in the United States.

Mexico has played at the AT&T Stadium at least once annually for the past decade apart from 2020. | Omar Vega/Getty Images

Unlike the majority of national team’s across the world, Mexico usually plays its “home games” on foreign soil, specifically just north of the border in the United States.

Another way of seeing the situation is that unlike most national teams, El Tri has, in the words of the former commissioner of Mexico’s soccer federation, “two homes.”

Ever since the conclusion of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, El Tri has played a total of 57 games. Of those, 39 have been played on U.S. soil and just 10 in Mexico.

Those numbers are clearly swayed by official competitions such as the Gold Cup and Concacaf Nations League that are held exclusively in America. However, looking at just the 27 international friendlies Mexico has played in that same time frame, the split is 18 games in the U.S. and only seven on Mexican soil.

Among those friendlies in Mexico was the scoreless draw against Uruguay in November 2025, during which fans were hostile towards their own national team. The reception in Torreón, Mexico, prompted Mexico’s star striker Raul Jiménez to say: “Maybe that’s why they always take us to the United States.”

Jiménez’s quote was unquestionably incendiary but also far from the truth. There’s an actual reason why the United States has become the real home of the Mexico national team and it has nothing to do with hostilities from fans on home soil.

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The Reason Why the Mexico National Team Plays Most of its Games on U.S. Soil

Mexico hosted Japan at the Oakland Alameda Coliseum in California last September. | Doug Zimmerman/ISI Photos/Getty Images

The reason why most of El Tri’s games are played in the U.S. comes down to one reason: money. In fact, Mexico is contractually obligated to play at least six friendly games in America every year.

The Mexican soccer federation has a longstanding business relationship with U.S. based company Soccer United Marketing (SUM) dating back to 2003. SUM is in charge of organizing friendly matches for El Tri in the U.S.

The original contract between El Tri and SUM guaranteed five friendly matches a year on U.S. soil, but after a contract renewal in 2022, that number rose to six until 2028.

Given Mexico is automatically qualified to the 2026 FIFA World Cup it will co-host, El Tri played even fewer games in Mexico since 2023 because it didn’t participate in the qualifier rounds—where nations are obligated to play home games inside their territories.

Back when the deal with SUM was renewed, then-federation president Yon de Luisa revealed the money generated from U.S. sponsorships from SUM-organized tours (friendly games) in the U.S. accounted for a third of the federation’s annual budget, per El Economista.

How much the federation makes under the new deal with SUM is unknown, but under the previous agreement, the federation was guaranteed to earn $2 million per friendly game in the U.S., according to the Los Angeles Times (via El Financiero).

The federation believes that around 60 million people in the U.S. are El Tri fans. Despite Mexico being a country with a population of over 130 million inhabitants, for the national team, it’s simply more profitable to cater to its supporters north of the border.

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