What Kind of Lights are Used on Football Fields and Soccer Fields?

After the hard work of building the football field, the other most important task is to add lighting on the football field. As we can see, almost every soccer field has lights, but do you know what we call it, and what kind of the lights are used on a football field and soccer field? Let’s see, floodlights, football field lights, high mast lights, spot lights, soccer field floodlights or soccer stadium lights? In fact, all of these names fall under the category of floodlights. Why do we call it a floodlight? What are the other names for football field lights? We will address these questions in this article.

What kind of lights are used on the football field in the past?

In recent centuries, most football and soccer stadiums have used high-intensity discharge lamps, or HID lamps, as their primary light source. Types of HID lamps include metal halide lamps, mercury vapor lamps, and high-pressure sodium lamps. These gas discharge lamps are often used in football fields because of their low initial purchase price and ease of availability.

Believe it or not, football field lights have a higher power consumption than typical commercial or residential lighting, as we need brighter lights to illuminate the large football field. However, these types of football field floodlights also have drawbacks such as long warm-up times and low life expectancy.

Back in 2013, there was an unforgettable lighting-related mishap. The Super Bowl was postponed due to a power outage. The HID football stadium lights required a lengthy warm-up process. High intensity discharge lights take about 10 to 20 minutes to reach full brightness, which can be very inconvenient for football players and spectators. In addition, the lumen maintenance rate of this type of football field lights is not high. The football field lights become very dim after 2 to 3 years of use. Therefore, we need to replace HID lights very frequently. That’s why we need to use a new type of lighting in football stadiums and soccer fields.

What kinds of lights are used on the football stadium nowadays?

Due to the advancement of technology, LED floodlights are now frequently used in football stadiums. Similar names for football field lighting include LED football stadium lights, football pitch flood lights, high mast flood lights, and more. These kinds of football field lights are called floodlights.

How do we call the lights on football field	Functions
Football field flood Lights	Illuminates the proximity of a football field with a wide beam of lights
Football field spotlights	Illuminate a farther area of a football field with concentrated lights
High mast stadium lights	The lights come from 12 to 60 meters (40 to 200 feet) tall light poles.

What are flood lights? Why do we call them football field floodlights?

As the name suggests, a floodlight is basically an artificial light source that has a wide beam, or a large beam angle, so that the light can flood the football field. Due to its high brightness and large coverage area, this type of light is very popular in the football stadium lighting industry. In addition to stadiums, this type of floodlight can also be used in large or outdoor locations.

What are spot lights? Why use this kind of lights on the football field?

Spotlights are another type of lighting commonly used on football and soccer fields. Compared to floodlights, spotlights have a narrower beam angle, which means the light is more concentrated. This type of lighting is very useful for illuminating the corners and sidelines of a football field. This is because spotlights can easily reach more distant areas of the playing field.

In the lighting design of the football field, we will use different types of fixtures such as floodlights, spotlights and high mast lights to illuminate the football field to meet the lighting requirements. If you would like a free photometric and lighting design report for your football field lighting project, please feel free to contact our team of engineers.

Why do we use LED floodlights on football fields?

There are two common types of football field lights, namely LED and metal halide. Nowadays, there are more and more people replacing metal halide or HID lights with LEDs. Do you know why?

Energy saving

A good quality 800W LED football flood and spotlight can replace a 2000W metal halide lamp. This means that electricity costs can be reduced by 60%. If the original football field lights cost $1,000 per month to run, the new LED football field floodlights cost only $400 to run. LEDs save you a lot because we can have more or less the same brightness, but use less electricity.

Higher CRI

After changing to LED football field lights, we can enjoy a CRI of 95+. With high CRI lighting, we can see the true colors of the field and the players. This type of football field lights is especially important for FIFA or Premier League TV broadcasts.

Instant on and off

As mentioned earlier, HID lights such as metal and mercury vapor lights have a warm-up time of 10 to 20 minutes, which is very inconvenient for football players and spectators. However, because LEDs use a completely different operating principle, LED lights can reach maximum brightness in less than a second.

Dimmable control

In the past, dimming was not an easy task, as the voltage of those types of traditional football field lights could be quite unstable. Nevertheless, LED stadium floodlights are compatible with DMX or DALI 0 to 10V systems, so the brightness can be easily adjusted according to our needs.