Any list of sports tourism destinations in El Paso begins on the last day of the year, with the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl that’s the culmination of a multi-day event set in one of the most picturesque football stadiums in America.

The Sun Bowl Stadium is also one of the two most picturesque stadiums in a mile and a half radius, as it’s right down the street from El Paso’s High’s R.R. Jones Stadium, which makes most any top list of the best high school football stadiums in the land.

That, in turn, is just down the street from another, much newer stadium jewel, Southwest University Park, which hosts the Chihuahuas and Locomotive.

Combining all three in a weekend can be difficult, but that’s the goal for Austin-based Texas historian David Dalton Thomas, who, on a book signing tour stop at Rosa’s Cantina, set it as an El Paso tourism goal.

There’s one possible (extended) weekend for that this year: El Paso High hosts Mountain View on Sept. 5 in its home opener, UTEP plays its “Sun City Game” a day later against Tennessee-Martin (the Locomotive are in SWUP at the same time), then a few days later the Chihuahuas kick off their final home six-game series of the year with Taco Tuesday against Albuquerque.

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Outside of that and the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl, most tourists in El Paso are tied to a specific event, like watching a son’s or daughter’s team in a high school tournament or a jaunt around town for the El Paso Marathon.

Here is a far from comprehensive list of reasons to come to El Paso for sports.

Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl game

El Paso’s signature event has an economic impact of $12 to $15 million each year, filling hotels and the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl itself for a game typically (like this year) on New Year’s Eve.

The Sun Bowl hosts events in El Paso year-round, notably its basketball tournament at the Don Haskins Center the week before Christmas and its Thanksgiving Day parade, one of El Paso’s biggest events.

For fans coming in for the football game, the Fan Fiesta the night before, this year at the Sun Bowl itself, is the big pre-game event in a week-long run-in to the game, which in recent years has been good more often than not.

The Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl game pits a team from the ACC against (this year) a Pac-12 legacy school (someone in the Pac-12 two years ago) and while tickets are a hot item, they are always available for face value through the Sun Bowl or a participating team.

Even when the Sun Bowl sold out in 2023 when it won Notre Dame in a lottery, tickets were available on Oregon State’s website at face value a week before kickoff.

UTEP football at the Sun Bowl Stadium

For those whose New Year’s Eve plans don’t include a trip to El Paso, the Sun Bowl, which opened in 1963 and holds up beautifully, is still a destination college football venue the six times a year it hosts UTEP.

Tucked into the Franklin Mountains, which tower over the stadium on three corners, and overlooking Juárez past the South end zone, the stadium holds in noise and can make small crowds sound large.

When the crowd is large and the game competitive, it can be magical.

The stadium also regularly hosts monster trucks, major concerts (such as Coldplay this year), professional soccer friendlies and high school football games.

El Paso High football at R.R. Jones Stadium

For high school football fans on a national stadium tour, this is on the bucket list.

Built in 1916, this 7,500-seat gem is considered the first concrete stadium in the country. Overlooking the field is the “Old Lady on the Hill,” the oldest operating high school in Texas and a wonder of Greco-Roman architecture.

The entire setting overlooks downtown El Paso and Juárez beyond it. The stands form a fishhook around the West end zone that lead up to the school, making it a unique layout. In 2019, a USA Today poll had it ranked as the second best high school stadium in America.

El Paso High hosts five home games per year, but other schools occasionally use the stadium and Dallas Cowboys star Micah Parsons once hosted a summer football camp here.

A Chihuahuas game at Southwest University Park

Who says you can’t fight City Hall? Presented with a chance to get Triple-A baseball, El Paso literally blew up the city’s seat of government in 2013 (implosion would be the technical term) to make room for what turned into a $78 million stadium.

When it opened after a one-year construction project on April 28, 2014, the first reaction of many El Pasoans when they walked in the gates was, “It’s like we’re not in El Paso anymore.”

A new stadium has the advantage of borrowing what works from stadiums that came before it and Southwest University Park brings that all together in a venue that was an instant classic when it opened.

In 2018 it won a poll on MLB.com as having the best view in minor league baseball, only partly including the big hotels that hang over the centerfield wall.

It wrote: “The Chihuahuas’ home offers not just one unique view, but many. In most of the seating bowl, you’re looking at El Paso’s skyline. On a walk around the concourse, you take in field-level views of the game. Look behind the ballpark from the Big Dog House’s Wooftop Deck in right field, and you’re peering into another country — specifically, Mexico. Juárez is just across the river.”

The field also reconfigures to host Locomotive soccer games. Joining the walk to the soccer version of the stadium with the flag-waving 8th Notch supporters group from a nearby bar, around the stadium and in to the South end zone seats is an experience of its own.

Hueco Tanks for bouldering

Google up “Hueco Tanks bouldering” and the first hit proclaims it “America’s No. 1 Bouldering Spot,” while the third touts “the best bouldering in the world.”

Bouldering is a form of rock climbing without harnesses or ropes or much equipment, and Hueco Tanks State Park & Historic Site, 40 miles West of El Paso, is as good as it gets.

From the site that called it America’s No. 1 Bouldering Spot, melaninbasecamp.com: “Hueco Tanks is a crag that every climber should visit at least once. There’s no place like it in the country. Slab, vertical, steep, highball, lowball — there is something for everyone.”

The park said “literally thousands” when asked how many tourists it draws during peak climbing season, which runs from October (after the heat) through March (before the wind dust storms). There is a limit of 70 at a time on North Mountain, the only mountain open to the public without a guide, and it fills up in a hurry on a busy winter weekend.

However, reservations can be made through 512-389-8911. Other than that, when it hits capacity, no one can go up North Mountain until someone leaves.

The East, East Spur and West Mountains are only available through guides, which runs around $30. Blue Lizard Climbing and Yoga, Sessions Climbing and Wagon Wheel Co-opt are the guided tour companies for Hueco Tanks.

Those climbing North Mountain check in at the Hueco Tanks front desk and pay $7. There is also an orientation video and the whole process takes about 15 minutes. Most of the North Mountain trails are about 1/2 mile long.

The climbing areas are part of a larger national historic park that includes cave art from Native Americans. This is where inhabitants of this part of Texas came for water. A guided walking tour to see the historical elements of the park is $5.

See an FC Juarez game at the Estadio Benito Juarez

This takes a passport but the Estadio Benito Juárez on a Bravos game day is the safest place in Juarez, and it’s reasonably easy to get there from the downtown bridge or the famous Kentucky Club by a short cab or bus ride (or a long walk of a little more than a mile).

Interesting fact: The rest room in the north end zone of this 20,000 seat stadium is closer to America than it is to the rest room in the south end zone. The stadium itself is nice with clean bathrooms, no violence and comparatively cheap concessions.

The Liga MX team that calls it home, the FC Juárez Bravos, play the highest level of soccer in North America (along with the MLS) and they are coming off their best season in the six years since they moved up to Liga MX.

Tickets start at $25 on sites like StubHub but often closer to $15 at the gate, depending on exchange rates and the opponent. Games against Guadalajara Chivas, Club America or Cruz Azul can sell out, but most games are fine for walk-up game-day ticket sales.

The Ice Bowl disc golf tournament at Nations Tobin Park

El Paso is home to one of the best disc golf courses in this part of the country (the South of Ruidoso part of the country) in Nations Tobin Park, and the 4-year-old 18-hole, par 56 course hosts the annual Ice Bowl in February that brings in disc golfers from all over the Southwest.

It annually raises roughly $3,000 for El Pasoans Fighting Hunger and features a full field of more than 80 disc golfers.

In general, the park is home to El Paso’s vibrant disc golf community and frequent informal tournaments are held there on Saturday mornings. This year the Ice Bowl is Feb. 1, the day of the NFL’s Pro Bowl festivities. “No one watches Pro Bowl,” Ice Bowl organizer Vic Villalobos explained.

Run, or watch, the El Paso Marathon (or half-marathon, or 5K)

If a 26.2-mile race across El Paso (depending on the year and route that year) is too long, there is also the half-marathon and the most popular 5K fun run. Together those races drew 4,700 runners and countless spectators to downtown this past February, where the race ended this year (some years it ends at the Coliseum).

The 2026 edition will be Feb. 22, more often than a prime time for good running weather in El Paso. In 2024 the race started giving out medals shaped like a letter from E-L-P-A-S-O, so a six-year project to complete the set. The 2026 race will be brought to you by the letter P.

See a UTEP basketball game at the Don Haskins Center

The biggest indoor venue of any kind in El Paso, the 48-year-old 10,000-seat basketball arena hosts UTEP basketball and the annual WestStar Don Haskins Sun Bowl Invitational.

The Sun Bowl tournament is worth making a trip for in the weekend before Christmas, as the Sun Bowl says it’s “the oldest holiday collegiate basketball tournament in the country.” The first one was played in 1961.

This year’s field has yet to be announced (that could come any day) but typically includes teams who made the NCAA tournament the previous year. Last year Yale was one of the invited teams.

But any UTEP game can be special, particularly if the team is good. Until the 2021-22 season fans would be informed in pre-game introductions that UTEP was the only team from Texas to win an NCAA Division I basketball national championship and that it was the first anywhere in the NCAA to do so with an all-Black starting lineup in 1966.

Fans wanting to see other gear from that 1966 team, such as trophies, framed newspapers and other memorabilia, can stop by the Foster-Stevens Center directly next door before the game, where they can also be greeted by the new statue of the legendary coach Don Haskins. Haskins, the namesake of the gym, led that 1966 team and has been twice-inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame.

The 1966 team played its game in Memorial Gym across the street, which still gets raucous when it crams in 3,000 fans for UTEP volleyball, the school’s most successful program at the moment, for games in the fall. They dub it “Club Memorial.”

The Haskins Center also hosts numerous concerts and most El Paso high school graduations, as well as UTEP graduations and any other indoor event that needs a roof and more than 3,000 seats.

Baylor changed UTEP’s “only title” to “first title” when it won the championship in 2021, but the Miners’ 1966 banner still hangs from the rafters’ most prominent spot.

See the El Paso High School Football All-Star Showcase football game at the SAC 2

This pre-Christmas, December event featuring the best high school football players in El Paso draws up to 30 college coaches to town. For those looking for something to watch but not recruit, the Socorro Activities Center 2 for any event is a destination.

Designed by 1985 Irvin High School grad Fred Ortiz of the Dallas-based HKS Inc. architecture firm (Ortiz also designed the Texas Rangers’ Globe Life Field), the 6,500-seat stadium opened last year and the newest venue in El Paso is now the premier high school facility in the city.

It’s the go-to for any big outdoor high school event, such as the recent girls flag football city championship tournament. With a smaller capacity than its neighboring Socorro Activities Center and no track around it, it provides a more intimate setting that has fans close to the field.

It will have at least one football game every week in the fall and on into the playoffs. Seeing an El Paso nemesis like Odessa Permian, Midland Lee or San Angelo Central when they travel in for a game, which happens every few years, is also worth recommending.

It’s a different experience from R.R. Jones or the Sun Bowl, but a special one nonetheless.

Catch the Sunland Derby

The February event is a major Kentucky Derby qualifier. It wasn’t back in 2009, but that year Mine That Bird finished fourth in the Sunland Derby. Later that summer, he won the Kentucky Derby as a 50-to-1 longshot.

Perhaps because of that, the Sunland Derby became a Grade III race next year, meaning the top horses in the Sunland Derby have a foot in the door to the Kentucky Derby.

The 2015 Sunland Derby winner, Firing Line, finished as runner-up to eventual Triple Crown winner American Pharoah in the Kentucky Derby.

When the Sunland Derby is running, it’s the biggest race in America that day.

Tee off at Top Golf

The 65,000-square-foot venue uses microchipped golf balls and giant targets on a field to create a gamed-up version of golf.

Topgolf El Paso was established in 2018, marking the 10th Topgolf location in Texas and the first on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Each bay is air-conditioned with HDTVs and food and beverage service, so a group outing can become a party.

It’s also next door to Indoor Skydiving El Paso, which can make for a long, fun day.

Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on X.