Red Bull Arena

The first Zentralstadion opened in 1956 and was then one of the biggest stadiums in Europe, able to hold 100,000 spectators. Various Leipzig football teams used it as a home ground, among them VfB Leipzig, the precursor of 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig, at several points in the twentieth century: large-scale European matches in the 1970s, domestic football in the 1990s. During the 1990s the ground fell into disuse, and it was costing the city too much to maintain.

After Egidius Braun, then president of the DFB, had tied a German bid for the 2006 World Cup to a venue in the new federal states, the city of Leipzig decided in 1998 to pull down the old Zentralstadion and build a football-only ground for 44,345 spectators. The new stadium went up inside the old one, set into the greened earth embankment of its predecessor, whose main building was kept, and bridges were carried over the old stadium to connect it with the new. The contract to build and run it went to EMKA Immobilien-Beteiligungs-GmbH, the company of the entrepreneur Michael Kölmel. The design came out of an international architectural competition won by Wirth+Wirth of Leipzig and Basel, who planned the stadium under their own commercial lead together with Glöckner of Leipzig and Nuremberg and Körber, Barton, Fahle of Freiburg; the roof structure and its statics were the work of IPL Ingenieurplanung Leichtbau of Radolfzell am Bodensee.

The rebuild was first costed at 90 million euros, of which the federal government carried 51 million, Kölmel 27 million and the city of Leipzig 12 million; a further 26 million in additional costs was split between Kölmel, who paid 17 million, and the city, which paid nine. Construction ran from December 2000 to March 2004, and the closing gala of the Deutsches Turnfest was staged in the unfinished stadium in May 2002. The first football match followed on 7 March 2004, when FC Sachsen Leipzig lost 0–1 at home to Borussia Dortmund's amateur side before 28,595 spectators in the 2003–04 Regionalliga. The ground was officially reopened on 16 and 17 July 2004 with an international tournament that brought Red Star Belgrade, Werder Bremen and Club Brugge to Leipzig, and on 17 November 2004 Germany beat Cameroon 3–0 there in its first full international.

The rebuilt Zentralstadion faced its first international test at the 2005 FIFA Confederations Cup, one of five venues for the tournament, where it staged three matches including the third-place game. A year later it was one of twelve venues for the 2006 FIFA World Cup and the only one in the former East Germany, hosting four group matches and a round-of-16 tie; unlike other grounds used in that tournament it kept its own name, Zentralstadion, throughout. The final of the German League Cup was played there in each of the three years from 2005 to 2007. FC Sachsen Leipzig used the stadium from time to time between 2004 and 2007 before moving back to their traditional home, the Alfred-Kunze-Sportpark, at the start of the 2008–09 season.

With no professional football in the city, the upkeep of the Zentralstadion ran at a loss, and Kölmel looked to sell it; the sale fell through in April 2005. He turned instead to finding well-funded investors for Leipzig football, an effort that came good in the summer of 2009 with the founding of RB Leipzig under the Austrian drinks manufacturer Red Bull GmbH. In July 2009 Red Bull took over the licence of SSV Markranstädt and renamed the club RasenBallsport Leipzig, and from the outset the new team set out its wish to move into the tenantless Zentralstadion and rename it the Red Bull Arena. At the end of 2009 Kölmel confirmed plans for a renaming in the medium term, Red Bull having secured an option on the naming rights as part of its involvement with the club.

The naming rights were granted on 25 March 2010, the Leipzig city council raising no veto that March, and the ground has carried the name Red Bull Arena since 1 July 2010. RB Leipzig's home matches were moved from the Stadion am Bad in Markranstädt to the stadium at the same time, and the club marked the move with a friendly against Schalke 04 on 24 July 2010, which it lost 1–2. In the 2010–11 season Hallescher FC played between three and five games at the ground while their own Kurt-Wabbel-Stadion was being renovated. In 2014 the stadium was ranked seventeenth in the country on attendance, safety and number of events.

The ground has been used well beyond football. The annual district congress of Jehovah's Witnesses was held there from 21 to 23 July 2006, the largest congress staged at the stadium. On 1 June 2008 the closing service of the Deutscher Evangelischer Posaunentag set a new world record for the largest brass ensemble. It is frequently used as a concert venue: Paul McCartney played there in 2004, and among others Genesis and Herbert Grönemeyer in 2007, AC/DC in 2009 and 2016, Coldplay in 2012 and 2017, and Rammstein in 2022. On 5 June 2013 Michael Ballack's farewell match, a World XI against Ballack & Friends, went ahead despite the flooding in Saxony, ended 4–3 to the World XI and gave part of its proceeds to the flood victims.

Expansion returned to the agenda in October 2015, with new plans for 57,000 seats drawn up with the Viennese architect Albert Wimmer and reconstruction possible in the summer break of 2016; in January 2016 the club put the plans on hold, at least until 2017. In December 2016 Red Bull announced that it wanted to buy the Zentralstadion and expand it to 57,000 places. Conversion work began in September 2019 with the securing of the earth embankment, the repair of stairways and a new access road for emergency vehicles, and in January 2020 work started on a cutting through the embankment on the south side of the stadium, towards the historic bell tower, with four new footbridges planned to ease the way to the upper tiers. The major works were to be finished in the summer of 2021 at a total cost of 60 million euros.

In March 2021 RB Leipzig announced that the first phase of conversion would remain the only one for the years ahead, and since August 2021 standing areas in the home and away sections have given the ground 47,069 places for domestic competitions, dropping to 42,600 for international matches. The home of the Bundesliga club RB Leipzig, it was one of the venues for UEFA Euro 2024 and the only one in eastern Germany; under UEFA's sponsorship rules it was called Stadion Leipzig for that tournament, as it is known as the RB Arena or Leipzig Arena for European matches. Its pitch won the DFL's Pitch of the Year award for the best playing surface in 2023–24, a second time after 2015–16. On 27 May 2026 the stadium staged the UEFA Conference League final between Crystal Palace of England and Rayo Vallecano of Spain.