The largest stadium in the United States, Michigan Stadium, holds over 100,000 people. While Michigan Stadium is the largest, almost every town has a stadium or baseball field that requires stadium lights. These stadiums are where a majority of high school athletes and collegiate athletes play.
Lighting for these stadiums is very important; games are often held after dark or during cloudy days. Without proper lighting, it could be difficult to see the action for players and fans alike. This increases the chances of injuries and reduces the interest of fans in showing up and supporting their local teams.
When deciding which kind of lighting you want for your stadium, there are a lot of choices. Older styles of lighting, including sodium-based and halogen-based lights, dominated the market for decades. Modern lighting solutions, however, are growing in popularity and present many advantages.
There are a lot of variables to consider when planning for your stadium lighting. The size of the stadium, the number of lights, and how powerful they need to be are all concerns.
Here are seven significant advantages of using an LED system for stadium lighting.
1. They Save Power and Are Cheaper to Operate
LED lights use up to 75% less energy than older styles of lighting. This means that every minute you operate your stadium lights, you are saving money. Depending on what your stadium, baseball field, or even tennis court is used for, this can equal a lot of savings.
If a game is played after dark, lights must be on all the time. In most places, lighting can equal up to hundreds or thousands of dollars a month in associated utility bills. This can put a strain on budgets for collegiate and municipal stadiums.
While you may think that switching to LED stadium lights is an expensive proposition, here is where the savings start to counteract the price of updating. It is not the only way in which LEDs will save you money, but the direct impact on the reduction of power used is one you will notice right away.
More than just saving money, this reduction in power allows your stadium to operate in a way that is more environmentally safe. Reducing the strain on power plants lowers the amount of carbon that is emitted. This helps to improve air quality and relieve environmental pressure.
2. They Last Longer
One of the great advantages of LED lights is that they last for an incredible number of hours. Each LED light you install could last 25x longer than traditional bulbs. This doesn’t just save you on replacement lights, but also upon the manpower to change the lighting.
In many stadiums, it can be difficult and dangerous to change the lights. It requires the use of safety equipment and even in some cases, having a bucket truck on site. This can, in turn, cause damage to the field, which will require even more labor to repair.
The cost of replacing bulbs has to be factored here as well. While updating to an LED system may seem expensive, the reality is that you won’t be changing light bulbs very often. The light-emitting diodes of the LED pole light system can last longer than 25,000 hours in some cases.
All of this will make your stadium cheaper to operate, but also more enjoyable to go to. Blown lights can scare children, cause delays, or reduce the ability of fans and players to see. If any of those things happen, your stadium will not be performing as well as it could have, had you used LED lights.
3. You Get Lighting Control
When you are trying to illuminate a game, LED sport lights give you greater control over the amount of light generated. In some systems, you can also control the color of that light. There are a lot of options when it comes to LED lights.