Basketball Court Lighting Layout

What Goes into Successful Outdoor Basketball Court Lighting Design?

A successful outdoor basketball court lighting design starts out with understanding the needs of the customer. How bright do you want the space to be? How often will it be used? Once we understand the lighting needs and physical dimensions of the court, including pole locations and heights, we can model the court with specialized lighting design software. The software creates a lighting design representing the physical court, light levels on the court, and how well-balanced the light is across the court’s surface.

What Goes into Successful Indoor Basketball Court Lighting Design?

The same standard that applies to outdoor courts applies to indoor courts as well, with one main difference. Lights are not mounted on poles at the sides of the court but rather mounted from the ceiling, like what you would find in a school gymnasium. In many aspects, it is easier to light up an indoor basketball court than an outdoor court, and achieving balanced lighting is also easier.

What is the Ideal Outdoor Basketball Court Lighting Layout?

The ideal lighting layout includes a graphical depiction of the court, identifying pole locations, fixture locations, and aiming data. The court displays foot candle measurements across the playing surface and also provides data (average / min calculations) showing how balanced the light is.

What is the Ideal Indoor Basketball Court Lighting Layout?

The same standard for outdoor courts applies to indoor courts. The benefit of using professional-grade lighting design software is that it can handle both outdoor pole-mounted applications and indoor ceiling-mounted applications and provide the customer with a detailed and visual report.

What are the Recommended Basketball Court Light Levels?

This depends on the level of play and the intent of the court. Typically, indoor courts are brighter than outdoor courts, and many communities restrict outdoor courts to some upper-end level of brightness (30 fc).

Indoor courts can range from 30 to over 80 foot candles, depending on the purpose and use. A basketball court in a church gymnasium does not need television broadcast light levels. We will work with you to determine the ideal light levels for your needs. But, typically, 30 to 50 fc is all that is needed for indoor recreation league-type basketball courts.

How Many Lumens Do You Need to Light a Basketball Court?

For basketball courts, a good guideline is between 30 to 80 lumens per square foot. For levels of play like college, 80 to 120 lumens per square foot would be ideal. For professional play and televised games, 100 to 150 lumens per square foot is a good target.