How Bright are Football Field Lighting?

Football is one of the most popular sports in the world, and more and more people are playing football at night. Due to the growing popularity of football, the lighting standards are also getting higher. The latest football field lighting should be able to provide adequate brightness for players and spectators. That’s why we need to know more about how bright football field lighting should be.

Lumens and lux needed for a football field

Measuring lumens and lux is one of the practical ways to define the brightness of a football field. Lumens are influenced by the light itself, while lux is influenced by many factors, such as the size of the football field, the height of the light pole, etc.

So back to the question, how bright are football field lights? The general answer is that football field lights should have at least 3,000,000 lumens, or 200 lux. If the football field or stadium is designed for professional competition, the brightness requirement increases to 22,500,000 lumens, or up to 1,500 lux. The luminosity depends on the level of competition.

Typically, a 400W to 500W LED light can replace a 1500W metal halide light. As a result, we can save a lot of energy and thus save the running costs due to lighting.

How bright the lights should be in the football field and stadium?

If you want to know more about the brightness level of the football field, let’s take a look at the following table.

Type of football field	Brightness of football field lights
Recreational and training field	3,000,000 to 5,000,000 lumens
High school and amateur field	5,000,000 to 10,000,000 lumens
National broadcasting football field	22,500,000 to 30,000,000 lumens
International broadcasting and 4K TV, i.e. FIFA, Olympic Games, Premier League, etc	> 22,500,000 to 40,000,000 lumens

As we can see in the table, the lumens required for a recreational football field are already 3 million lumens. If the football field is designed for a professional event like FIFA or the Premier League, the lumens for football field lighting could be increased to 4 million lumens, which is 10 times different from a recreational field.

To provide sufficient brightness for a high school football field, we may need about 20 to 40 pieces of LED stadium lights, or 50 to 200 pieces of metal halide or mercury vapor lights. For FIFA or Premier League football fields, we may need 150 to 250 pieces of LED lights, or up to 400 to 600 pieces of metal halide or high pressure sodium lights, so we need a lot of football field lights. This is why stadium owners prefer to replace mercury vapor lights with LED. We can save energy and running costs immediately because we can reduce the wattage of football stadium lights used.

Are brighter football stadium lights always better?

The answer is yes or no. Bright lighting is important because it allows players and spectators to clearly see the fast-moving football. We need about 200 to 300 lux of light on a recreational football field, while in FIFA matches we will need up to 1000 to 2000 lux of light. Brighter football field lighting is also important to eliminate shadows in the football field so that players can have a better view.

On the other hand, brighter lights mean that football players and spectators are vulnerable to glare. The strong glare can cause eye irritation, which can greatly affect a player’s performance. That’s why LedsMaster has developed an anti-glare system for football field lighting. Our patented anti-glare system can reduce unwanted glare by up to 90%. As a result, football players and spectators can still fully enjoy the game on a football field with an illuminance of 1000 to 2000 lux.

If you would like to learn more about the brightness of a football field and receive a free lighting consultation, please do not hesitate to contact our team of engineers. We look forward to hearing from you.