Sitting on the site of the former Foleshill gasworks, the Coventry Building Society Arena – commonly shortened to the CBS Arena – is one of the most versatile event venues in the West Midlands. The 32,609-seater stadium is the current home of Premier League football club Coventry City, but the wider complex extends well beyond the pitch, taking in a 6,000 square metre exhibition hall, a hotel, a casino, and the Arena Park Shopping Centre, which contains one of the largest Tesco Extra hypermarkets in the United Kingdom.
A Stadium with a Complex History
The arena was originally conceived in 1997, when Coventry City’s then-chairman Bryan Richardson decided the club needed a modern replacement for their long-standing home at Highfield Road. Planning permission for a 45,000-seat ground was granted in spring 1999, with August 2001 set as the target opening date. The finished stadium arrived four years behind that schedule and was more modest than the original plans had envisaged. Ownership and operation initially fell to Arena Coventry Limited (ACL), a body jointly held by Coventry City Council and the Alan Edward Higgs Charity, with Coventry City as tenants. A protracted rent dispute led to the football club leaving in 2013 and playing home matches in Northampton for over a year before returning in September 2014. Within two months, both ACL shareholders were bought out by rugby union club Wasps, who relocated from Adams Park in High Wycombe. Further disputes pushed Coventry City out again ahead of the 2019-20 season. In March 2021, Wasps and Coventry City agreed a ten-year arrangement to share the arena, though that deal was later voided when Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group acquired the site. A five-year deal with Frasers Group was announced in April 2023, and on 23 August 2025, Coventry City completed the purchase of the arena outright, becoming the landlords of the ground.
Naming, Sponsorship, and Major Events
The venue has carried several names over the years. It was widely known as the Ricoh Arena before Coventry Building Society entered into a ten-year sponsorship agreement in 2021, giving the stadium its current name. When stadium naming sponsorship was prohibited during major international competitions, the ground was referred to as the City of Coventry Stadium for the 2012 Summer Olympics and Coventry Stadium for the 2022 Commonwealth Games. The arena also holds a practical distinction as the first cashless stadium in the United Kingdom, introducing a prepay smartcard system for purchases at its bars and shops – a feature that has remained in place ever since.