However, the retail developments that would have provided enabling funding were deferred due to lack of financing, leaving the Lions without a home.

[6] The stadium also hosts concerts, with artists including Take That, Rammstein, Rod Stewart, Olly Murs, My Chemical Romance and Imagine Dragons having performed there in recent years.

[9][10] This consortium proposed a large development in the southern Milton Keynes district of Denbigh North, including a 30,000-capacity football stadium, a 150,000-square-foot (13,935 m2) Asda hypermarket, an Ikea store, a hotel, a conference centre, and a retail park.

[13][16] Winkelman, an ex-CBS Records executive and music promoter, had moved to the Milton Keynes area from London in 1993.

[18] Critics of this claim pointed to the apparent lack of public interest in Milton Keynes City and the other local non-League clubs,[9][18] and argued that Milton Keynes residents interested specifically in League football already had ample access with Luton Town, Northampton Town and Rushden & Diamonds all within 25 miles (40 km).

[9] Winkelman was the only person in Milton Keynes publicly associated with the project;[11] his financial supporters, later revealed to be Asda (then a subsidiary of Walmart) and Ikea,[13][19] were kept strictly anonymous.

[11] Opponents of such a move surmised that the stadium was a "Trojan Horse" included in the blueprint to bypass planning rules, and that although the consortium described the larger development as enabling the construction of the stadium, the reverse was the case—Winkelman's consortium, they claimed, had to have a professional team in place right away to justify the ground so the development could get planning permission.

"Having seen the opportunity to build a stadium Milton Keynes lacked, and realised Asda did not have a store in the town, Winkelman acquired options to buy the land from its three owners, including the council.

Asda would not have been granted planning permission for a huge out-of-town superstore unless it gave the council the benefit of building the stadium.

A League club would move up, permission would be granted, then Winkelman would exercise the option to buy all the land, sell it to Asda and Ikea for very much more, and the difference would be used to build the stadium.

[19] Starting in 2000 the consortium offered this proposition to several Football League clubs, including Luton Town, Crystal Palace, Barnet,[21] Queens Park Rangers,[22] and Wimbledon F.C.

[10] Wimbledon F.C., who had groundshared at Crystal Palace's Selhurst Park ground since 1991, adopted the Milton Keynes plan after the appointment of a new chairman, Charles Koppel, in January 2001.

's intent to move on 2 August 2001 with a letter to the Football League requesting approval, stating that Wimbledon had already signed an agreement to relocate and "subject to the necessary planning and regulatory consents being obtained" intended to be playing home games at a newly built stadium in Milton Keynes by the start of the 2003–04 season.

[35] With the move threatened and the club facing liquidation, Winkelman made "the life-defining decision", to quote Conn, "of taking it on himself".

[39] Milton Keynes Dons continued to play at the National Hockey Stadium while the development including the new ground was constructed in Denbigh.

[40] In December 2005 MK Dons set a target of playing at the new ground by January 2007;[41] in February 2007 they revised their proposal to a 22,000-seater stadium ready in July of that year, with provision for expansion to 32,000 (it had originally been intended to seat 30,000).

[50] On 6 October 2015, Stadium MK hosted the Rugby World Cup match, Uruguay versus Fiji and this set the new record attendance to 30,043.

[53] On 5 June 2010, the stadium hosted a full international friendly; Ghana beat Latvia 1–0 in their last warm-up before the World Cup in South Africa.

[56] According to press reports, Tottenham proposed to play most home matches in MK and a small number at Wembley Stadium.

[57] The idea of playing home matches in Milton Keynes, even temporarily, was largely unpopular with Spurs fans.

[59] In a London Evening Standard poll of 206 Tottenham fans two months later, 71 (34%) said they would attend home matches at Stadium MK if the club played there temporarily, while 135 (66%) said they would not.

[61] Two months later, the FA chief executive Martin Glenn indicated that he supported the idea of clubs playing temporarily at Wembley while their grounds were redeveloped.

It provided a grand stage for Rugby World Cup 2003 winner Richard Hill's 288th and last appearance for the men in black.

On 24 January 2011, the Northampton Saints Rugby union club announced that their 2010–11 Heineken Cup quarter final match against Ulster would take place in the stadium, because their Franklin's Gardens ground was too small to meet the minimum 15,000 seats demanded by the organisers.

The Saints had previously indicated that they might play future major games at Stadium MK as their proposal to expand Franklin's Gardens using an enabling (ASDA supermarket) development had encountered planning difficulties.

[80] On 21 January 2012, Northampton Saints played their final 2011–12 Heineken Cup pool match at Stadium MK against Munster.

[94] The South stand of Stadium MK is known as the Cowshed by Dons fans, as Milton Keynes is known for its Concrete Cows.

This nickname was also used for the home end at the Dons' previous ground in Milton Keynes, the National Hockey Stadium, now demolished.

The stadium is in south central Milton Keynes, in Denbigh, a part of the Bletchley and Fenny Stratford civil parish, near the junction of the A5 and the A421 spur.