Sports venues can create a richer and more attractive atmosphere by changing the color of facility lighting. This practice is called color temperature adjustment. Although red, blue, or green light is used to illuminate the floor (also known as RGB adjustment), indoor sports venues usually use more subtle applications to illuminate the venue with white light to best show the game. Changing the color of white light in the space is called white balance.

White light exists in many different tones, and the unit of measurement is K. The lower the K value, the warmer and yellower the white light tone. For example, the light emitted by an incandescent bulb has a color temperature of 2800K. A higher color temperature indicates that white light has a cooler, bluish hue. It is generally believed that 5600K is the daylight color temperature at noon.

For multi-purpose indoor venues, the color temperature of white light is an important consideration, because different sports look better under different white lights. The wood tones of the basketball court and the exposed skin of the players appear more active under warm white-tone lighting (around 4000K). However, under 4000K lights, hockey ice cubes look dull and dirty, but when illuminated with 5600K lights, hockey ice cubes appear crisp and clean.

So, for stadiums that host multiple events, it is a challenge to use a single lighting system to achieve multi-color white light.

White dimming challenges in indoor areas

Most light sources and lamps emit a white light under the target light. In the past, two different lighting systems were needed to light up the arena, creating the best conditions for basketball and hockey games, while maintaining the light level of the playing field. Usually, this is done through a metal halide system with a color temperature of approximately 5000K and a high-pressure sodium lamp lighting system in the range of 2600K-2800K.

The two lighting systems must be used in coordination to obtain the desired light color on the court. For hockey games, only 5000K metal halide lamps can be used to illuminate the ice, producing the coolest color temperature the system can provide, but still not reaching the best 5600K. In order to increase the color temperature of the lights in basketball games, some metal halide lamps are used in combination with high-pressure sodium systems. The mixture of 5000K and 2700K lamps will produce a lighting color temperature on the court, which falls somewhere in the range. For a long time, this imprecise and imperfect dual system method is the only choice for the arena to achieve white balance.

New LED sports lighting solutions

Advances in LED materials, design and control have allowed LED lamps to emit white light in different tones. These toned LED sports lighting fixtures combine two LED light sources with different color temperatures (3500K and 6500K), and then adjust the power entering the different color diodes to produce accurate color temperatures. The multi-purpose arena can now display hockey in a 5600K environment and basketball in a 4000K environment, while maintaining the best lighting level in the playing field. All of this can be achieved through an energy-saving white LED sports lighting system.