Princess Auto Stadium — The Bombers' Home Since 2013
For a Bomber supporter, a stadium name is only the beginning of the story. Princess Auto Stadium brings together the club's home games, national championships and a wider sporting calendar on the University of Manitoba campus. Its opening in 2013 and its naming agreement in 2024 are separate milestones. Keeping those dates apart helps make sense of references to IG Field and Princess Auto Stadium: they describe different chapters at the same ground, rather than a move between two venues.
From IG Field to Princess Auto
The Winnipeg Free Press's January 2024 naming report described a ten-year sponsorship agreement for the campus stadium. It noted that IG Wealth Management had sponsored the venue since its opening in May 2013. The Princess Auto name therefore belongs to a stadium with more than a decade of events behind it at the time of the change.
For reading a match report or remembering a ticket stub, the useful distinction is between the name on the building and the building itself. A reference to IG Field need not mean a different location. The naming timeline offers a way to place those memories without treating every change of sign as a fresh start for the ground.
Opening Season, 2013
The club's stadium history gives May 26, 2013 as the official opening, marked by the One Heart Winnipeg community celebration. The Bombers' first regular-season home game followed on June 27. An opening date and a first league game answer different questions, so both belong in the venue's timeline.
That distinction is useful when comparing accounts of the first season. A community opening marks the doors opening to an event; a first regular-season game marks the beginning of the football record there. Neither date needs to displace the other. Together they show how the stadium's public life and its Bomber home-game story began.
Two Grey Cups on Campus
The stadium hosted the 103rd Grey Cup in 2015 and the 112th in 2025. The CFL's account of the 2025 matchup also places those games within Winnipeg's wider hosting history: the city had previously welcomed the championship in 1991, 1998 and 2006. City hosting totals and this stadium's hosting total are different records.
On November 16, 2025, Saskatchewan defeated Montreal 25–17 at Princess Auto Stadium for its fifth championship. The CFL reported a sell-out crowd of 32,343. Its report on the game and festival's economic impact cited an independent Sport Tourism Canada assessment of more than $93 million in economic activity across Canada.
The same report said ten million Canadians watched at least part of the game. That is a measure of television reach, while the crowd figure counts those at the stadium. Keeping those measures distinct gives a clearer sense of the occasion's scale.
More Than Football
The club's event list extends beyond CFL games. It includes matches from the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, the 2017 Canada Summer Games and a 2019 NFL preseason game between Green Bay and Oakland. Valour FC's inaugural match at the stadium took place on May 4, 2019.
Those entries give the ground several sporting timelines at once. A CFL championship, an international soccer match and a multisport event belong to different competitions, even when the venue name is shared. For a reader tracing a particular event, the sport and year are useful companions to the stadium name.
The Old Barn and the New
Our Canad Inns Stadium page follows the earlier home through a fan's eyes. Here, the campus ground's opening, naming agreement and championship dates provide a different set of reference points. One way to appreciate both is to keep the affection for a home ground alongside a clear account of which venue hosted which occasion. A stadium can carry many meanings for supporters; the dates help keep the football record in focus.