Guide On How To Choose LED Basketball Court Flood Lights
LEDs are an excellent alternative to metal halides, halogens, HPS, mercury vapors and fluorescent lamps due to their higher energy efficiency and longer lifespan. Now LED lighting is widely used in residential, commercial or professional applications, especially the high mast LED flood lights are used for illuminating the indoor or outdoor basketball courts. Today, we would like to explore how to choose the best LED stadium flood lights to illuminate the basketball court.
1. The lux level requirement for non-televised events
The lighting design and standards for residential, recreational, commercial and professional outdoor basketball courts would be different. According to the basketball lighting guide (please see the different illumination level requirement for indoor and outdoor events as the following images showed), it takes approximately 200 lux for backyard and recreational events require. Since the standard basketball court has an area of 28 meter × 15 meter (420 square meters), we need about 200 lux x 420 = 84,000 lumens.
But how many powers do we need to illuminate the basketball court including stand and hoop? Our standard luminous efficiency of each LED stadium flood lights is 170lm/w, so we need at least 84,000 lumens/170 lumen per watt=494 watt LED flood lights (Close to 500 watt LED flood lights). But this is only an estimated data, welcome to consult with us if you need us to offer more professional lighting design like the DiaLux report or any advises for your lighting projects.
Tips:
Class I: It describes top-class, international or national basketball tournaments such as the NBA, NCAA Tournament and FIBA World Cup. This illumination level needs the lighting system to be compatible with the broadcast requirements.
Class II: It describes the regional competition.The lighting standards are less active because they usually involve non-television events.
Class III: It describes the general entertainment or training activities.
2. Lighting standard for professional televisioned basketball events
If your basketball court or stadium is designed for broadcast competitions such as the NBA and FIBA World Cups, the illumination standard should reach up to 2000 lux. In addition, the ratio between the minimum and maximum lux in the basketball court should not exceed 0.5. The color temperature should be in the range of cold white light like from 5000K to 6500K and and the CRI is as high as 90.
3. Anti-glare lighting for basketball players and spectators
Another important feature of the basketball court lighting system is the anti-glare function. Intense glare makes the player feel uncomfortable and glaring. This problem is particularly prominent in indoor basketball courts due to the reflective floor. Sometimes we need to use indirect lighting, which means pointing the ceiling light up and then using reflected light to illuminate the court. So, we need additional power of LED lamps to compensate for the light absorbed by the high ceiling.
4. Flickering-free LED lights for basketball court
Under high speed cameras, the quality of the ordinary flood lights is poor. However, our LED floodlights are equipped with the lowest flicer rate less than 0.3%, which is not detected by the camera during the competition.