South Carolina begins Williams-Brice renovation work in days after Clemson game
Williams-Brice Stadium has turned into a construction zone.
On Sunday morning, just a day after the South Carolina football team concluded its season with a loss to Clemson, crews took the very first steps for what will become a multi-year renovation at the nearly-80,000-seat venue. On Monday, workers from ISI Demolition were on site and temporary fencing had been added around the stadium.
The renovation project is set to wrap up in time for the 2027 football season, but construction will halt for the entirety of the 2026 season and not cut the capacity or force any seat relocations until everything is wrapped up. Once completed, Williams-Brice Stadium’s capacity will shrink by approximately 4,100 seats.
A major goal of the renovations is to increase the premium seating inside Williams-Brice Stadium — notably bumping the SEC-low 18 suites to 42 by 2027.
But the upgrades extend well beyond just making things nicer for the wealthiest fans. They will also include two new video boards in the south end zone, wider concourses, more bathrooms, a club-like space for students, an in-house kitchen (currently, all food is cooked off-site and brought over) as well as a loading dock that South Carolina believes is necessary to draw future big-time concerts to Columbia.
For some, though, the thought of the construction project is unsettling.
As part of the renovations, South Carolina is asking the more than 14,000 people who have tickets on the west-lower stands of Williams-Brice Stadium to go through the seat-selection process again for the 2027 season. In other words: Someone with season tickets in the west-lower sections isn’t guaranteed to be able to buy those seats again for the 2027 season. And if they are, the cost per ticket has not yet been determined.
In the changing college sports landscape, South Carolina athletics needs new sources of revenue as it’s now allowed to pay players as part of the House settlement agreement. The stadium can provide the biggest windfall, something that has become evident as other schools around the country have started their own renovations.
This story was originally published December 1, 2025 at 2:37 PM.
