How Many Lights are Needed for a Football Field?
When lighting up a football field, we need to consider different factors such as how many lumens for a football field or stadium, as well as the lux required. After getting the information, we can calculate the number of lights needed to illuminate a football field. Let’s recall some of the important lux levels.
| Type of football field | Lux required | Number of football field lights needed |
| Recreational, or training | 200 to 300 lux | 15 to 25 pcs |
| High school, or amateur competition | 400 to 500 lux | 20 to 40 pcs |
| Professional | 750 lux to 1000 lux | 40 to 60 pcs |
| National TV broadcast | 1000 to 1200 lux with vertical illumination requirement | 80 to 120 pcs |
| International tournament such as FIFA, Premier League, Olympic Games | > 1500 lux with vertical illumination requirement | 150 to 250 pcs |
From the above table we can see the lux required increases with the level of competition. The football field should be brighter if it is designed for the more professional matches.
The number of lights varies with these lux requirement – we need more lights to light a high school football field than a recreational or training field. If you would like to retrofit the metal halide lights on a recreational or training football field, you will probably need 15 to 25 pcs of LED stadium lights.
On the contrary, if the football stadium is designed for international broadcasting tournament such as FIFA and Premier League, sometimes we need up to 250 pieces of football field lights.
If you are not sure how many lights you need for a football field and stadium, Let’s consult our lighting engineers and electricians for a free lighting design service.
How many lights do we need to light a football field or stadium?
The number of football field lights is also affected by the light pole layout. How many lights per pole do you need in a football field? Let’s take a look at the table.
| Type of football field | Number of light per pole |
| Recreational | 3 to 6 lights |
| High school | 5 to 8 lights |
| Professional | 8 to 15 lights |
| National, international football tournaments | Up to 50 to 80 lights per pole |
For football field designed for professional use, we need more lights per pole. For most high school football field, we typically install 5 to 8 high power LED stadium lights on galvanized steel poles, which will be placed at least 20 to 30 ft from the sideline of the football field.
For the football stadium, we will have approx. 50 to 80 lights on the light poles. 80 lights are needed for football stadium because we need to make sure the illumination fulfill the lighting requirement, like lux requirement (both horizontal and vertical) and lighting uniformity.
Contact our lighting engineers to get the free football stadium lighting design today.
4-pole layout
One of the most common light pole arrangements for the football field is the 4-pole layout. The light poles are located at the four corners of the football field, and we have 4 sets of lights that are symmetrically arranged. We need around 4 to 15 lights per pole according to the lux requirement and type of football field.
6-pole layout
In addition to the 4-pole arrangement, we have 2 extra poles in the middle of the sideline. The advantage is that each pole will be responsible for a closer region. Thus, it is easier to achieve better uniformity and brightness. In this case, the number of lights per football field pole will decrease a little to 2 to 8 lights per pole.
8-pole layout
Some football fields or stadiums adopt 8-pole layout. There are 4 poles on each side of the football field. The advantage of the 8-pole layout is that we can further reduce the number of lights per pole, which will make it easier to install.
Number of LED vs metal halide stadium lights
Another factor affecting the quantity of football field lights required is the type of light source. The number of lights can be dramatically reduced if we replace the metal halide with LED lights. This is because LED has higher energy efficiency. We may use 4 pcs of LED lights to replace 10 to 12 pcs of metal halide lights having the same wattage.
| Type of football field | Number of LED football field light needed | Number of Metal halide football field light needed |
| Recreational or training | 15 to 25 pcs | 30 to 45 pcs |
| Professional | 40 to 60 pcs | 80 to 100 pcs |
| National football tournaments | 80 to 120 pcs | 200 to 300 pcs |
For the national football stadium, it takes up to 200 to 300 pieces of metal halide lights to illuminate the field. After the LED replacement, we can reduce the number of lamps to 80 to 120 pieces. Apart from reducing the number of lights in football field, we can also enjoy 25 to 35 years life span of LED stadium lights after the metal halide replacement. We can significantly reduce the running cost and maintenance cost in the long run.