A major renovation, completed in 1990, reduced the seating capacity to its current total of 8,500 and added an elaborate weight training facility, new offices for the basketball and athletics programs, a players' lounge, and a team meeting room.

The Coliseum stands across the street from the former site of Stoll Field/McLean Stadium, the football team's home before moving to the venue now known as Kroger Field in 1973.

Prior to the building of the Coliseum, the Kentucky basketball teams played less than three blocks away at Alumni Gymnasium, a 2,800-seat arena built in 1924 and now converted to a student fitness center.

On April 18, 2023, Barnhart announced that all home gymnastics and volleyball matches, as well as the majority of women's basketball games, during the 2023–24 season would be held at Rupp Arena.

A select number of women's basketball games were played at Transylvania University's Clive M. Beck Center on days when there were scheduling conflicts at Rupp Arena.