How Many Watts are Stadium Lights?
Whether it’s a football stadium, baseball stadium or cricket stadium, we need to know what the wattage of the stadium lights is in order to better arrange the lights on the poles. In fact, every stadium is different, so we need to consider the wattage.
In recent years, more and more stadium owners are converting their metal halide or mercury vapor lamps to LED lamps, which is why we need to know the wattage of those traditional HID lamps. In this article we will talk about the watts of stadium lights used for different kinds of stadium.
What are the common stadium lighting wattage?
According to our research, the most commonly used watts for stadium lights are 400W, 500W, 750W, 1000W and 1500W, providing 64,000lm to 240,000lm lumens per light. These wattages are very common because they are bright enough to illuminate the entire stadium while having a reasonable size.
| Watts of stadium lights | Applications |
| 400 watts | Basketball stadium, tennis arena, baseball stadium |
| 500 watts | Baseball stadium, soccer stadium |
| 750 watts | High school football stadium, cricket stadium |
| 1000 watts | General stadiums (It can be used in almost all types of stadiums and arenas) |
| 1500 watts | Stadiums for Olympic Games, Premier League, ICC etc. |
From the table above, we can see that 400 watt and 500 watt floodlights are mainly used in small stadiums, such as basketball and tennis stadiums. This is because if we use too high power stadium lights, they can easily create blind spots and reduce the uniformity and quality of lighting, so we can use smaller wattage in these stadiums.
For larger stadiums such as football, soccer and cricket fields, we can use 1000W to 1500W LED stadium lights. If we mainly use 500W or smaller wattage, we will need a lot of lights to illuminate the stadium, which is not desirable because the installation cost may increase a lot. Therefore, we should use larger wattage stadium lighting for football stadiums, soccer fields and cricket grounds.
How many watts are cricket stadium lights?
The wattage used in cricket pitches can be divided into three classes, i.e. Class I, Class II and Class III. As Class I cricket pitches are designed for international matches like ICC, we will need as much as 80,000 to 250,000 watts of LEDs. if we use HID lights, the wattage required to illuminate the cricket field will increase to 2,750,000 watts. Let’s look at the table below to see the different wattages required for different types of light sources
What is the wattage of a class I cricket stadium lights?
| Type of lighting | Wattage needed for class I cricket stadium |
| LED lights | 80,000 to 250,000 watts |
| Metal halide lights | 250,000 to 750,000 watts |
| Mercury vapor lights | 500,000 to 150,000 watts |
| Halogen lights | 1,000,000 to 2,750,000 watts |
Therefore, we can see that professional cricket pitches consume millions of watts of electricity if halogen lamps are used. the difference in wattage between LED and halogen lamps is so great because their luminous efficacy is very different. the luminous efficacy of LED lamps is about 10 times higher than that of halogen lamps, so LED cricket pitch lights require only 1/10 of the power of halogen lamps. therefore, if we replace HID lamps with LEDs, we can save a lot of energy and running costs.
Sometimes, cricket field owners also request vertical illumination and we need to add an additional 15 to 25% wattage to meet these lighting requirements. If you have any lighting project that requires powerful floodlights, please do not hesitate to contact our team of sales and engineers. You will receive a free lighting design and consultation. Contact us today.
How many watts is a class II cricket stadium lighting?
Class II means that the cricket field is holding a local cricket match or practice. We need to use a smaller wattage because we don’t need as much light as we see in a class I cricket pitch. Instead, since cricket pitches are designed for training and local matches, the wattage of LED cricket lights is about 45,000 to 110,000 watts.
| Type of lighting | Watts of class II cricket stadium |
| LED lights | 45,000 to 110,000 watts |
| Metal halide lights | 120,000 to 370,000 watts |
| Mercury vapor lights | 240,000 to 700,000 watts |
| Halogen lights | 500,000 to 1,200,000 watts |
If you use conventional light sources at the cricket field, we still need more than millions of watts. So, in terms of energy efficiency, LED is always a better choice. While the initial price of LEDs may be higher than those HID lights, replacing the lighting in a cricket field is worth it.
What is the wattage required to light a class III cricket ground?
The class III cricket field is designed for recreational or high school use, where we need less power to light up the stadium because the activity is less intense.
| Type of lights | Class III cricket stadium wattage |
| LED lights | 15,000 to 60,000 watts |
| Metal halide lights | 40,000 to 220,000 watts |
| Mercury vapor lights | 80,000 to 350,000 watts |
| Halogen lights | 150,000 to 550,000 watts |
With LEDs, we would need 15,000 to 60,000 watts of stadium lighting, whereas we would need over 150,000 watts of halogen lighting to illuminate the same venue.
How many watts is a LED football stadium lights?
Lighting a football stadium is never an easy task, as we need to take care of many lighting parameters such as lumens and lux to illuminate the stadium. The required lumens also increase with the level of competition. If the stadium is designed for international or national competitions, then the stadium needs brighter lights. In this section, we will discuss the wattage required for football stadiums. Since LED football lights are the most common light source, we will focus on the wattage of LED floodlights for stadiums.
| Type of football stadium | Watts needed for the LED stadium lights |
| Recreational football field | 12,000 to 30,000 watts |
| Training, High school football stadium | 24,000 to 65,000 watts |
| Regional competition | 30,000 to 80,000 watts |
| International tournaments such as FIFA, Premier League, etc | 80,000 to 280,000 watts |
As we can see in the table above, if a football or soccer stadium is designed for professional events such as the Premier League and the Olympics, then the stadium lighting wattage used is approximately 80,000 to 280,000 watts. Sometimes we need more than 200 floodlights to light a football stadium. We need to use so many watts because of the strict lighting requirements, including horizontal and vertical illumination, lighting uniformity, CRI, color temperature, etc. If you would like more information about stadium lighting design, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We have professional engineers to help you decide on the best stadium lighting.
What determines the wattage of stadium lighting?
There are many factors that affect the wattage used in a stadium, so when designing lighting, we need to consider each stadium on a case-by-case basis. Let’s figure out what factors are.
Size of football stadiums
While there are standard sizes for football and soccer fields, not all stadiums have the same size. The general idea is that the larger the field, the higher the wattage we need. The larger the field, the more lumens we need, and therefore the higher the wattage of the stadium lights. The lumens needed are proportional to the size of the stadium, and the wattage is proportional to the lumens needed.
Different stadium light sources require different wattages
As mentioned earlier, if we use LED lights, the wattage will be much lower. If we use halogen lights, we need to use more than 10 times the wattage because halogen bulbs have lower luminous efficiency. Think of it this way, if we replace HID lights with LED lights, we can save up to 75 to 90 percent of energy and thus save on electricity costs due to stadium lighting.
Level of competition
Two football stadiums may have the same size and use the same LED light source, however, the wattage of the stadium lighting that ends up being used may be different because they have different levels of competition. A stadium for professional soccer games should have a higher wattage than a stadium for training. Because we don’t need the intense lighting used for training, the wattage used for soccer stadium lighting will be lower.
The layout of the stadium poles will also affect the wattage used
4-pole, 6-pole and 8-pole are common pole layouts for football fields or stadiums. 8-pole layouts can have less wattage because each pole has a smaller lighting area and therefore less light loss. This is related to the distance the light beam travels. This is why taller stadium light poles may also result in light loss. Therefore, it is not recommended to have light poles taller than 60 meters (200 feet) to minimize light loss.
However, more poles also mean higher installation costs and pole costs. In order to have an optimized design, please feel free to contact us for the best free sports lighting design.