Forsyth Barr Stadium
Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand
Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin, New Zealand — opened 5 August 2011, 2 rugby league games hosted, home of Otago Rugby Football Union and the Highlanders (Super Rugby, since 2012), and Southern United F.C. (football); no rugby league club has ever been a tenant — occasional NRL exhibition/pre-season and international fixtures.
Sourcing caveat: A separate, well-documented NRL pre-season trial (New Zealand Warriors 16-10 Brisbane Broncos, 23 February 2013, attendance 15,355) predates our directory's recorded "first used 2014" and is not reflected in our 2-game count — plausibly because trial matches are excluded from our directory's inclusion criteria, though this was not independently confirmed. The 2017 fixture's attendance (reported as 10,238 by Rugby League Project) could not be independently corroborated by a second source.
Ground facts
| Opened | 5 August 2011 (Officially opened by then-Prime Minister John Key; known during development as "New Carisbrook"/"Dunedin Stadium" (exact date ranges for these working names not established), and required to carry the sponsorship-neutral name "Otago Stadium" for the 2011 Rugby World Cup and 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup under those tournaments' anti-sponsor-branding rules.) |
| Home club | Otago Rugby Football Union and the Highlanders (Super Rugby, since 2012), and Southern United F.C. (football); no rugby league club has ever been a tenant — occasional NRL exhibition/pre-season and international fixtures |
| Games hosted (rugby league, on record) | 2 |
| Top recorded crowd | 15,836 |
| Capacity | 30,748 for rugby/football (36,000-plus for concerts) |
| Test matches hosted | 1 |
| Floodlights installed | 220 built-in sports lights integrated into the roof structure, providing effectively permanent lighting regardless of weather or time of day |
| Surface | a hybrid natural grass pitch reinforced with synthetic grass fibres injected into the soil, under New Zealand's only fully-enclosed major-stadium roof (translucent ETFE material, giving it the nickname "The Glasshouse") |
| First rugby league match | 8 November 2014 — New Zealand 16-14 England, 2014 Rugby League Four Nations, Round 3 (attendance 15,836, our recorded top crowd) |
| Years used | 2014–2017 |
| Location | Dunedin, Otago |
Name history
- Forsyth Barr Stadium — 2011–present, the venue's standing sponsorship name outside FIFA/World Rugby tournament windows
- Otago Stadium — a temporary neutral name required during the 2011 Rugby World Cup and 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup
Rugby league history
Forsyth Barr Stadium's rugby league use has leveraged its unique all-weather roofed capability, a genuine selling point for winter fixtures in the deep south of New Zealand where an open-air game risks being washed out. The 2014 Four Nations Test brought a full-strength Kiwis vs England international to Dunedin, a rare instance of a top-tier rugby league international played outside Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch in New Zealand. It later hosted an NRL premiership regular-season fixture between the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs and New Zealand Warriors on 17 March 2017 (Bulldogs won 24-12), matching our directory's recorded last-used year.
Home of the Otago Rugby Football Union and the Highlanders (Super Rugby); also used by Southern United F.C. (football).
Historic Test matches, Cup & Grand Finals hosted
- 8 November 2014 — New Zealand 16-14 England, 2014 Four Nations (15,836)
Pre-dates the site's structured match-by-match records for these competitions, so listed here as sourced facts rather than linked match pages.
Sources
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
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