The stadium was built in 1999 by Fletcher Construction[4] and is situated close to major transport facilities (such as Wellington railway station) one kilometre (0.62 mi) north of the CBD.

It was built to replace Athletic Park, which was no longer considered adequate for international events due to its location and state of disrepair.

[9] On 22 August 2019, it was announced that Sky had signed a six-year agreement to take over as the naming sponsor of the stadium from 1 January 2020.

[11] In 2002, during an England versus Black Caps cricket match, director Peter Jackson recorded 30,000 fans chanting in Black Speech for the sound of 10,000 chanting Uruk-hai during the Battle of Helm's Deep in the film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

There were nine matches, including a triple threat match between Kurt Angle, The Undertaker, and Mark Henry for the World Heavyweight Championship (WWE) Also in 2006, a concert was held by the Rolling Stones, which ended the Australasian leg of its A Bigger Bang World Tour, On 14 October 2007, Australia defeated New Zealand in the Centenary Test rugby league game.

The 58–0 defeat set a new record for the largest loss by the New Zealand national rugby league team.

On 1 December 2007, the stadium hosted an exhibition match between Wellington Phoenix FC and the Los Angeles Galaxy.

LA Galaxy won 4–1 in front of 31,853 spectators, the largest crowd for non-national football (soccer) match in New Zealand history.

[12] On 17 January 2008, the stadium hosted the kickoff show of the Oceania leg of the Police Reunion Tour[13] and over Easter the inaugural two-day "Rock2Wgtn" music festival, headlined by Kiss and Ozzy Osbourne.

The stadium hosted the national team's 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying match on 14 November 2009 against Bahrain.

[15] On 28 January 2010, AC/DC kicked off the Australasian leg of its Black Ice World Tour at the stadium.

[22] On 11 November 2017, the stadium hosted its third World Cup qualification inter-confederation play-off with the New Zealand men's national football team drawing 0–0 against Peru in front of a new record crowd for a football match in New Zealand of 37,034 fans thanks to extra seating install in the stadium for the match.

[23] On 2 March 2019, the stadium drew its second largest crowd to date with an attendance of 46,474 for Eminem's Rapture concert.