What is Floodlights?
Floodlights are broad-beamed, high intensity artificial lights often used to illuminate outdoor playing fields while an outdoor sports event is being held during low-light conditions.
In the top tiers of many professional sports, it is a requirement for stadiums to have floodlights to allow games to be scheduled outside daylight hours. Evening or night matches may suit spectators who have work or other commitment earlier in the day. The main motivation for this is television marketing, especially in sports such as Gridiron which rely on TV rights money to finance the sport. Some sports grounds which do not have permanent floodlights installed may make use of portable temporary ones instead. Many larger floodlights (see bottom picture) will have gantries for bulb changing and maintenance. These will usually be able to accommodate one or two engineers.
Types of floodlight
The most common type of floodlight is the Metal Halide which emits a bright white light, however most commonly used for sporting events are high pressure Sodium floodlights which emit a soft orange light, similar to that of street lights; SON lamps have a very high lumens per watt ratio making them a cost effective choice where certain lux levels have to met.