The original stadium was built in 1934 with Works Progress Administration funds and called Columbia Municipal Stadium. It replaced Melton Field, an aging wooden grandstand on land where USC's Thomas Cooper Library now stands. The first capacity was 17,600 - just the lower bowl of what stands there now. The Gamecocks beat Erskine 25-0 in their first game on the new field. In 1941, the city deeded the stadium to USC, who renamed it Carolina Stadium. Over the next several decades both end zones were filled in, capacity doubled and doubled again, until the structure became the bowl it is today. The current name dates to September 8, 1972, when the stadium was renamed Williams-Brice in honor of Martha Williams Brice and her husband Thomas Hardin Brice. Thomas had played football for the Gamecocks from 1922 to 1924. Their estate, passed down through nephews Tom and Phil Edwards, paid for the 1971-72 west grandstand rebuild and upper deck.

Opposing players have called it the loudest environment they have ever played in. Press box announcers at a 2001 Florida game said they had to shout to hear each other. On October 6, 2012, when the sixth-ranked Gamecocks beat fifth-ranked Georgia 35-7, attendance hit 85,199 - still the stadium record. ESPN's College GameDay has set up across the street at the State Fairgrounds four times and on campus at the Horseshoe three more. The current capacity is around 80,250. The atmosphere has won SECsports.com's vote for the best game day in the conference. Some of that comes from tradition. The rest, the Gamecocks earn week by week.

The team enters to Also sprach Zarathustra - specifically the Dawn fanfare Stanley Kubrick used to open 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Sporting News called it the most exciting pregame entry in college football. In 2008, the school installed an array of subwoofers under the scoreboard expressly to make the music thump in your chest. Then there is Sandstorm. The Darude song was introduced at Williams-Brice in 2008, but became a defining tradition on September 24, 2009, the night South Carolina beat fourth-ranked Ole Miss 16-10. The combination of Sandstorm before kickoff, the deck swaying, the strobe-flicker of LED lights at night games, and 80,000 fans shouting "GAME" from the west grandstand answered by "COCKS" from the east creates something opposing players remember for years. The Cockaboose Railroad - 22 immovable cabooses parked on an abandoned siding behind the south end zone - hosts pregame parties unique to Williams-Brice. Each Cockaboose has cable television, and most have been passed down through families.

Williams-Brice has hosted more than football. In 1987, Pope John Paul II spoke from the stadium to 60,000 people during his papal visit to Columbia; Billy Graham held his South Carolina crusade there the same year. The Chicago Bears beat the Buffalo Bills 35-7 in an NFL preseason game in August 1990. U2's Zoo TV Tour played the stadium on September 23, 1992, with Public Enemy opening. The Rolling Stones came in 1994 with Blind Melon. Farm Aid '96 brought Willie Nelson, Hootie and the Blowfish (Columbia's own), Neil Young, the Beach Boys, John Mellencamp, and others to raise money for farmers hit by Hurricane Bertha and a Great Plains drought. In December 2007, Barack Obama drew 29,000 people to a campaign event also attended by Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey. In August 2018, Beyonce and Jay-Z played the On the Run II Tour. In August 2024, Liverpool beat Manchester United 3-0 on the same grass.