2026 NFL season: your guide to living it in Nuevo Vallarta

The World Cup confetti has barely settled and the other great ritual of the year is already knocking: the 2026 NFL season. In just a few weeks — early September — real football is back: Sunday tripleheaders, Thursday Night Football, Monday Night Football, and that familiar feeling of planning your whole week around the games. If you live in Nuevo Vallarta, spend your winters on the Riviera Nayarit, or you're just visiting between September and February, here's the good news: you don't need a stadium. You need a table at Guicho's Sports Bar.

This is your complete guide to following the 2026 season from the bay: what's coming, how the kickoff times line up in Nayarit (spoiler: beautifully), what to order for every kind of game, and how to lock in your seat when the matchup deserves it. Bookmark it — it'll be useful from September all the way to the Super Bowl.

What's coming in the 2026 NFL season.

You know the drill, but it never gets old: the regular season kicks off in early September 2026, runs week by week through the fall and winter, the playoffs arrive in January, and it all builds up to Super Bowl LXI in February 2027. Five months where every Sunday matters, every loss stings and every winning streak turns into a dream.

This year comes with an extra storyline: the Seattle Seahawks arrive as defending champions. Last February they lifted their second Lombardi Trophy after beating the New England Patriots 29-13 in Super Bowl LX, with Kenneth Walker III taking MVP honors on a night this bar will not forget anytime soon. If you missed it — or want to relive it — we wrote the whole story in our recap of Super Bowl LX and Seattle's title run.

Can Seattle repeat? Do the Patriots bounce back after coming up one game short? Which surprise team crashes the party this time, the way one seems to every season? Nobody knows — and that's exactly why September is the best month on the sports calendar. Every fan base is undefeated, every team is alive, and the whole story is still unwritten.

Your NFL week at Guicho's.

The NFL has a weekly rhythm that's simply better with company. Here's how a typical regular-season week plays out at our corner of Nuevo Vallarta:

Day	What's on	The play at Guicho's
Thursday	Thursday Night Football: one game to open the week	Wings-and-beer night without wrecking your Friday
Sunday	The tripleheader: early window, late-afternoon window and the primetime game	The full marathon — arrive before the first kickoff, leave after the last whistle
Monday	Monday Night Football: the week's grand finale	The best excuse ever invented for Mondays
January	The playoffs: win or go home	Every game feels like a final — book your table early
February 2027	Super Bowl LXI	The event of the year at the bar: come early or stand

Sunday: the crown jewel

An NFL Sunday is the perfect format for a sports bar, because it isn't one game — it's a full day of them, back to back. Guicho's has screens throughout the room, so during the early window several games run at once: your team on one screen, your buddy's team on the next, and scores from around the league everywhere you look. Then comes the afternoon slate, and by the time the sun goes down, the primetime game hits a room that's already warmed up. It is, quite literally, an entire day of football without leaving your table.

Thursday and Monday: the bonus games

Thursday Night Football and Monday Night Football are the midweek treats. One game, everyone's eyes on it, and that great bar dynamic where you end up yelling at every play even when your team isn't on the field. If you're wintering in one of the Nuevo Vallarta resorts or working around the marina, Thursday and Monday nights are the easiest plan in town.

The Nayarit time zone is on your side.

One of the underrated perks of watching the NFL from the Riviera Nayarit is the clock. The early East Coast Sunday games land comfortably around midday here: you get a slow breakfast, a swim, and you're still fresh for the first kickoff. The late-afternoon window lines up perfectly with lunch — wings in one hand, cold beer in the other — and the primetime game ends at a civilized hour, not at three in the morning like it does for the poor fans watching from Europe.

Exact kickoff times shift from week to week with the league's schedule, so don't marry a specific hour: the practical move is to follow Guicho's on Facebook, where we post what's showing and when the bar opens for each game day.

Why Guicho's is the bay's home stadium.

Nuevo Vallarta has plenty of lovely places to eat, but very few that were actually built for watching sports. Guicho's was born for exactly that, and you can tell in three ways.

Screens everywhere, multiple games at once

An NFL Sunday just doesn't work with a single TV. At Guicho's, screens are spread throughout the bar, so on multi-game afternoons every table has a clear view and the big matchups get split across screens. Your team kicks off at the same time as the table next to you? No problem — everyone follows their own game, and everyone celebrates (or suffers) together.

Casual, family-friendly atmosphere

No dress code, no attitude: come in shorts and your jersey, with your friends, your partner or the kids. The vibe is neighborhood-bar in the best sense — locals from Bucerías and Mezcales, Nuevo Vallarta families, expats who've become regulars, and vacationers who came for one game and ended up coming back all season. People cheer, tables mix, and on big days strangers become fantasy-league rivals by halftime.

A location you can't beat

You'll find us at Blvd. Nayarit 137B, Local 5, right on Nuevo Vallarta's main boulevard: minutes from the marina, the hotel zone and the golf courses. If you're staying in the area, there's no need to taxi into Puerto Vallarta to find your team on a screen — the sports bar is a short walk or a quick ride from your resort. Map and directions are in our location section.

What to order on an NFL Sunday.

Football has its own official cuisine, and we take it seriously. Here's the starting lineup from our menu for game day:

Wings in five flavors. Buffalo for the purists, BBQ for the sweet tooth, Parmesan for something different, Mango-Habanero for the brave, and Lemon Pepper for the ones who know. Pro move: order a mix of flavors for the table and build your own playoff sampler.

300-gram burgers. That's a burger north of half a pound — the two-handed kind that gets you through a full game. If it goes to overtime, you won't go hungry.

Nachos and boneless wings. The definitive halftime snacks: for sharing, for not sharing, or for the big tables that show up for the full Sunday marathon.

Ice-cold beer and clamatos. The beer comes out frosty the way it should, and the clamato — Mexico's beloved beer-and-tomato cocktail — is the official companion of the early Sunday window. If you've never tried one, this is the season to convert.

Practical tips for the 2026 season.

Five months of football is a lot of game days. These five tips will help you make the most of every one:

1. Arrive early for the big games. Heated divisional matchups, the teams with big followings in Mexico, the January playoffs and — obviously — the Super Bowl all pack the house. Getting there early means a good table and a good screen.

2. Book on WhatsApp. For groups, birthdays or just to leave nothing to chance, message us at +52 322 199 9535 and reserve your table. On high-demand dates it's the difference between watching the game seated or standing at the bar.

3. Follow the bar on Facebook. At facebook.com/GuichosSportsBar we post each week's broadcasts, opening times and game-day specials. It's the fastest way to confirm your game will be on.

4. Build your season crew. The NFL is better with rivals at the table. Round up your fantasy league, pick your regular Sunday, and make Guicho's your home stadium for the whole season.

5. Visiting? Don't overthink it. Every week, guests from the Nuevo Vallarta resorts ask us where they can catch their team without fiddling with hotel TV packages or sketchy streams. Short answer: right here. Long answer: our full guide to where to watch live sports in Nuevo Vallarta.

January and February: the playoffs and the road to Super Bowl LXI.

If the regular season is the party, the playoffs are the wedding. In January every game is win-or-go-home and the bar's energy jumps two levels: more people, more jerseys, more noise on every snap. It's the stretch of the calendar when we most recommend reserving, because postseason weekends fill up fast.

And then, the grand finale: Super Bowl LXI in February 2027. It's too early for details, but if Super Bowl LX taught us anything — besides how thoroughly Seattle's defense can ruin a quarterback's night — it's that this bar turns into a cauldron on that Sunday. Halftime show, loaded nachos, friendly table-to-table wagers and the most-watched game on the planet on every screen. Save the date now.

From September to February, every week has its appointment. You bring the fandom and the jersey; we'll bring the screens, the wings and the ice-cold beer. See you at kickoff.

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