Our third blog in the sports light series will outline the various applications in which these fixtures can be used. Although the name suggests that the lights are used for sports applications, there are actually a variety of uses for the lights. So, with that said, here are some instances where sports lighters could be the go-to.

Sports Applications

What: Starting out with the obvious is the various sports applications that use sports flood lights. Splitting this into two subcategories we have large and small sports applications. Examples of large applications can be soccer fields, football fields, and baseball diamonds. Examples of small applications are basketball courts, tennis courts, and hockey rinks. Although all the examples of large and small applications both have similar needs with regards to the lighting, there are some features which are appreciated more between the two categories.

Why Sports Lighters: Since sports lighters are typically designed with sports applications in mind, it is no surprise that a lot of the features are important for this application. That being said, this blog will highlight a feature that showcases the importance of the fixture for both large and small sports applications.

Looking at large sports applications, a sports flood light that is mounted at heights well over 100ft performing well is very important, as visibility on a field is a must have for both players and audiences alike. This is something that a sports lighter takes care of easily.

For smaller applications, the mounting height will be lower and so this might not be as important. However, with the light fixtures closer to the area of play, having the light angled correctly is very important to ensure the players are not blinded while using the facility. With a variety of angle and beam configurations, once again sports lighters are well equipped.

Outdoor Industrial Applications

What: Outdoor industrial applications can mean a large range of things. This includes construction sites, loading docks, and ship/trainyards to name a few. Overall, the similarities between these applications are that they are outdoors and require a robust and effective light fixture that will work through tougher conditions.

Why Sports Lighters: So why would a sports lighter be an effective fixture for these applications? For starters, many of these examples would require a light fixture to be mounted at a large height and project light to a certain spot. Looking at a construction site as an example, a fixture may be mounted on a crane which would of course be high up as well as needing to illuminate an area bright enough for workers to see what they are doing. More than just needing to work at large distances, fixtures used in these applications need to be robust and not break easily. An LED sports light, such as the RAB SFL-LED, is designed so that even when mounted up high, things such as strong winds will not affect the fixture. For these reasons, sports lighters can actually be the perfect fixture for an outdoor industrial application.

Large Indoor Spaces

What: Like outdoor industrial applications, the application of a large indoor space can seem like a quite broad category. This application includes spaces such as airplane hangars or manufacturing plants. Essentially as the name states, just any large indoor space requiring high quality light.

Why Sports Lighters: As with the previous categories, one of the main factors that points to a sports light being the ideal fixture is the height at which the light needs to be mounted. Taking an airplane hangar as an example, the space needed to store a plane will by nature be quite large which in turn means that lights will have to be mounted at quite a large height. Beyond that however, another important feature of the sports lighter that makes it effective here is that there isn’t much maintenance needed. This means you are able to just put the fixture up and then not worry about it which is great as continually going up to a large height for maintenance can end up being a big pain, not to mention the potential risks to workers as well.

As you can see, many of the features a sports lighter has makes it ideal for a large variety of applications, apart from just lighting up the local football field. RAB’s SFL-LED has various mounting options available where outdoor industrial and sports applications can use either the slipfit or the yoke mount while indoor applications can use the highbay yoke mount.

If you want to learn more about this type of lighting check out the first two blogs in the series. These blogs cover the differences between a sports flood and a general flood as well as some essential tips for facility managers with regards to LED sports lighting. You can find these blogs here.

Convinced that sports lighter might be ideal for your next project? Why not check out RAB Design’s SFL-LED as a great sports flood lighting option.

Outdoor sports lighting can be a complex field with many different variables and considerations. In this blog series, we will distill some of the key ideas to help you decide if it is right for your sports field.

This is the first of a series of blogs covering sports flood lights. Sports lighting is used for baseball, football, soccer, tennis courts, hockey rinks, and more. This blog outlines some of the major differences when comparing a sports flood light to a regular flood light. Beyond the obvious fact that a sports lighter is a specialty fixture intended for outdoor sports fields, regular floods are often used as the lower cost option.

There are several things to consider when thinking about the right fixture to use at your facility/field, the most important one being light level requirements. Light level requirements can vary depending on the classification of the field, the level of competition, the users of the facility, existing light levels, and existing light sources being used. For example, in a university football field, prescribed light levels as recommended by the IES Handbook are from 200 lux/20 footcandles to 1000 lux/100 footcandles on the horizontal and 50 lux/5 footcandles to 300 lux/30 footcandles. A lighting layout comparing light levels from a sports lighter to a regular flood will provide an indication of the difference in light levels and uniformity of light spread. Reach out to lightingdesigns@rabdesign.ca to get a conversation started on a custom layout design for your facility/field.

Moving on, we will now look at some of the key differences between a general flood light and a sports flood light.

Higher Lumen Output

One big difference is that sports flood lights tend to be the higher end option. Sports flood lights generally deliver higher lumens, sometimes over 100,000 lumens. A big benefit of the higher lumens is that the sports flood lights can be mounted at larger distances and heights. These lights need to be able to perform, even if they are 100 feet in the air, for example if they are mounted on a pole overlooking a football field. Sports lighting is designed to project a beam of light out a certain distance and from a certain mounting height (See chart 1 below). Flood lighting on the other hand is designed to illuminate at a shorter distance out from the pole or mounting location.
General purpose floods usually go up to about 60,000 lumens and are ideal for mounting heights of 20 to 40 feet. As stated earlier, this means for mounting heights greater, specialty sports floods provide a significantly higher lumen output.
Higher lumen output is derived through higher wattage or more power being consumed by the fixture. A good metric when comparing fixtures is efficacy or lumens per watt or LPW. RAB Design’s sports light has an efficacy of 150 lumens per watt. It is DLC 5.1 Premium which is key to securing rebates, depending on your region.

Different Beam Patterns and Options

Sports flood lights will typically have more options for beam patterns compared to regular floods as sports floods need to have a much larger variety of patterns and angles to fit how they are being used. The narrow beams are needed to project the light out a greater distance, 200 to 240 feet, the 60 degree angle reaches 145 feet to 175 feet and the 80 degree beam would be under 105 feet (see chart 1). In a way a sports flood light is really more like a spotlight that is projecting light out to a certain spot while a general purpose flood light is just looking to spread the light out.

A clear example of why the angle of the beam pattern is so important for a sports flood compared to a regular flood can be seen in the example of lighting up a baseball diamond. For areas that need greater amounts of light, you need a better control of that beam of light. In this example, on a baseball diamond the outfield poles would require a narrow beam of light 20 degrees to illuminated from the bases back towards the poles along with a wide 80 degree beam to illuminate out to 80 feet from the pole.

Let’s say there’s a pop fly and the outfielder is looking upwards to catch the ball, the last thing you want is for the player to be blinded by the light. Being able to configure the beam to shine at an angle that avoids this problem is key for sports floods.

Weight & Footprint

Sports lights have a larger footprint and weigh more compared to regular floods. This is an important consideration for Installers
If you found this blog useful, blog stay tuned for the next blog covering sports flood lights coming out soon!

Also, as a helpful tool, we have included a checklist to help you decide whether sports flood lighting is the right choice for your facility, so be sure to check that out.