The lux level standard is vastly different between televised and non-televised competitions. According to the FIFA’s stadium lighting guide, the class V (i.e. international televised such as World Cup) football field has the highest standard level of 2400 lux (vertical – face of football players), and 3500 lux (horizontal – the turf). If the football field is for community (recreational use), we need 200 lux level. The high school or college football club can have 500 lux.
Another important parameter is lighting uniformity. It is a scale from 0 to 1 (max) reflecting the distribution of lumen across the sports field. It is the ratio of minimum illuminance to average illuminance (U1), or ratio of minimum to maximum (U2). Hence, if the lux level is quite similar, says around 650 to 700 lux, the difference between minimum and maximum value is very small, and the uniformity will be closer to 1. The lighting uniformity of the FIFA standard football stadium is 0.7, which is relatively challenging in the sports lighting industry.
The general color temperature requirement of football ground is larger than 4000K for all classes. Despite this suggestion, we usually adopt 5000K to 6000K cool white light to provide better illumination for the players and audience because these colors are more invigorating.
