Marrara Oval was officially opened to the public on 30 June 1991 as the new home of the Northern Territory Football League (NTFL), and was conservatively estimated as costing $8 million.

[5] In February 1992, Marrara Oval hosted its first match sanctioned by the Australian Football League (AFL), a preseason Foster's Cup fixture between Collingwood and West Coast attended by 11,000 people.

[6] The first regular-season AFL match played at Marrara Oval came in round 20 of the 2004 season, when the Western Bulldogs hosted Port Adelaide.

Port Adelaide also had a three-year deal with the Northern Territory government and Marrara Oval, in which they would be the "away" team for games at TIO Stadium each year between 2009 and 2012.

In April 2016, the Adelaide Crows launched a successful bid to enter a team in the inaugural AFL Women's season.

After that, top-level international cricket did not return to Marrara Oval until mid-2008, when the ground hosted a three-ODI series between Australia and Bangladesh.

In 2014, the Parramatta Eels, a Sydney-based National Rugby League (NRL) club, announced they would be playing four games at Marrara over the following four years.

The first game came on 9 August (Round 22) during the 2014 NRL season when the Eels defeated the Canberra Raiders 18–10 in front of 9,527 fans.

Sir Elton John performed for the first time in the Northern Territory, at TIO Stadium on 17 May 2008 as part of his Australian Tour.