Princess Auto Stadium

About Princess Auto Stadium

Few stadiums change their name as often as this one. On the University of Manitoba campus in south Winnipeg, the 32,343-seat home of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers has worn three different names in barely a decade: Investors Group Field at its 2013 opening, IG Field from 2019, and Princess Auto Stadium since 2024. Each sponsor is a Winnipeg company, which keeps the branding stubbornly local.

The Blue Bombers share the grounds with the University of Manitoba Bisons, who have played here since it opened. For six seasons it was a soccer ground too: Valour FC of the Canadian Premier League called it home from 2019 until the club suspended operations after the 2025 season. The venue has proven unusually versatile, hosting an NFL preseason game (Packers vs. Raiders, August 2019), an NHL Heritage Classic in 2016, and matches of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Four professional leagues on one prairie pitch.

The Blue Bombers have made the place a fortress. After a 29-year championship drought, they won the Grey Cup in 2019, beating Hamilton for their first title since 1990, then repeated in 2021, though both of those finals were played on the road. At home, the stadium itself has hosted the Grey Cup twice, in 2015 and again in 2025, cementing its place among the CFL’s premier championship venues. Like the Green Bay Packers, who once played a preseason game on this field, the Blue Bombers are community-owned, a non-profit answerable to their fans rather than a single billionaire, and that civic ownership is a big part of why the team and its stadium feel so tightly bound to the city.

The address is 315 Chancellor Matheson Road, tucked into the south end of the U of Manitoba campus, about 12 kilometres from downtown. It is a stadium that arrived under a cloud of cost overruns and lawsuits and then quietly turned into one of the best home-field advantages in the league.

Construction & Design

The building did not come easy. Budgeted at CA$115 million, the stadium ended up costing about CA$210 million, nearly double, and in 2015 its owners sued the architect and builder over 42 alleged construction deficiencies, from water damage to cracked concrete to inadequate insulation. For a while it was one of the most controversial stadium builds in the country, a cautionary tale as much as a home field.

Designed by Winnipeg architect Raymond S.C. Wan and built by Stuart Olson Dominion Construction, it replaced the aging Canad Inns Stadium and opened on the university campus in 2013 after breaking ground on May 20, 2010. Two angled canopies of corrugated metal shelter the sideline stands, while the field and end zones stay open to the sky. The playing surface is FieldTurf Vertex, laid ahead of the 2024 season. Ownership sits with Triple B Stadium Inc., a corporation controlled by the community-owned Winnipeg Football Club, which also operates the venue.

For all the early trouble, the finished stadium works. The bowl is steep and loud, the sightlines are strong, and on a cold November night for a Grey Cup it looks every bit the big-league venue Winnipeg wanted. Sometimes the messy builds age the best. It helps that the weather does the intimidating: Winnipeg late-season football is bitterly cold, and the open end zones let the prairie wind become a twelfth man.

Getting to Princess Auto Stadium

Public Transit

Winnipeg Transit runs dedicated express service for every Blue Bombers game and major event.

The Park-and-Ride is the best value. CA$5 covers parking and the shuttle, compared to CA$20 for close-in lots.

Driving + Parking

The stadium address is 315 Chancellor Matheson Road, Winnipeg, MB. Pembina Highway and Kenaston Boulevard are the primary approaches.

The Gold and Blue lots cost CA$20 cash, the Black value lot is CA$10, and the Park-and-Ride is CA$5. Premium lots require pre-purchased season passes. Unauthorized parking in university lots results in a CA$50 fine or towing.

Rideshare

Uber and taxis enter via Chancellor Matheson Road for drop-off. From downtown Winnipeg, expect CA$10–$15. From the airport, CA$27–$32. Post-game congestion is heavy, and the Park-and-Ride avoids it entirely.

From the Airport

History of Princess Auto Stadium

Princess Auto Stadium opened on May 26, 2013 with “One Heart Winnipeg,” a multi-denominational celebration, before the Blue Bombers played their first CFL game there on June 27, losing 38-33 to Montreal. The bigger stages came fast.

Key moments in the stadium’s history:

• 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup (June 2015): Hosted group-stage matches, including Sweden 3-3 Nigeria plus games featuring the United States, Australia, and Japan, bringing the world tournament to Winnipeg under FIFA’s no-commercial-name policy.
• 103rd Grey Cup (November 29, 2015): Edmonton defeated Ottawa 26-20 in the first Grey Cup at the new stadium, expanded to about 36,500 seats for the occasion, the CFL championship’s first return to Winnipeg since 2006.
• NHL Heritage Classic (October 23, 2016): The Edmonton Oilers beat the Winnipeg Jets 3-0 outdoors before more than 33,000 fans, with an alumni game featuring Wayne Gretzky, Teemu Selanne, and Dale Hawerchuk.
• 107th Grey Cup won (November 24, 2019): The Blue Bombers ended a 29-year drought, beating Hamilton 33-12 for their first title since 1990, though that final was played in Calgary. They repeated as champions in 2021.
• 112th Grey Cup (November 16, 2025): Saskatchewan defeated Montreal 25-17, the second Grey Cup hosted at the venue in 12 years.

The Blue Bombers’ rise into a CFL powerhouse gave the building its identity. Through the late 2010s and into the 2020s the club reached the Grey Cup again and again, winning in 2019 and 2021 and appearing in a string of finals that made Princess Auto Stadium one of the hardest places in the league to win. Home playoff nights on the frozen prairie, the crowd in blue and gold, the wind coming off the open fields to the south, became a defining image of modern Canadian football. For a stadium that opened to lawsuits and cost overruns, it is a striking second act.

From the cost controversies to two home Grey Cups to four professional leagues on one pitch, Princess Auto Stadium is where Winnipeg football lives, a versatile venue on a university campus that has packed in more major events in its first decade than most stadiums see in a generation.

Sources & Further Reading

• Winnipeg Blue Bombers: bluebombers.com. Primary tenant and stadium operator: game-day, tickets, and team history.
• University of Manitoba: umanitoba.ca. Campus host and home of the Bisons football program.
• Canadian Football League: cfl.ca. Grey Cup history and records.
• Princess Auto Stadium on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org. Construction, capacity, naming, and event history.