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Lighting DesignTennis Court Lighting
Tennis court lighting typically consists of area flood lights or shoebox style lights with special optics designed for tennis courts and pickleball courts. LED is the perfect replacement for Metal Halide and HPS Lighting for tennis courts and can easily replace Metal Halide and High Pressure Sodium used outdoors to illuminate tennis courts. LED lights enable you to maintain high light output, with less energy consumption. Typical energy reduction is 75% or more. Get Your Free Tennis Court Lighting Plan
Frequently Asked Questions
Whether you’re looking for light up indoor or outdoor tennis courts, there’s a lot of questions to consider before you make your first purchase. Scroll below to find answers to our most common questions or call at (888) 423-3191 to speak with a lighting expert
General
What Are the Advantages of LED for Tennis Court Lighting?
LED lighting has several advantages over the metal halide and (sometimes) HPS lights when used for tennis courts:
Instant ON - Instant OFF
50-75% energy savings
Bright, high quality light for years to come without costly maintenance
What Type of Lights Are Used for Tennis Courts?
For indoor tennis courts, tennis court lights are mounted on the ceiling. The light points down, similar to a gym light, or points upwards, reflecting against a white reflective surface.
For outdoor tennis courts, lights are pole mounted on the perimeter of the court. They resemble shoebox lights that are commonly found in parking lots. These lights use special optics to "throw" the light towards the center of the court.
What Is the Best Lighting for Indoor Tennis Courts?
There are two options, and it all depends on whether you want light pointing downwards or upwards.
The best solution for lights pointing downwards is a high bay light. We recommend a UFO LED light with a frosted lens to reduce the amount of glare produced. These lights are powerful, bright, and robust. So hitting them with a tennis ball will not cause any damage.
If your tennis club uses up-lighting against a reflective ceiling, and you currently power them with metal halide, a cost effective solution is to retrofit these lights and replace the metal halide components with a LED retrofit kit. This allows you to keep your lights and convert to LED, with all its benefits. Or, we do have fixtures that can be pointed up and reflect down on the court
What Is the Best Lighting for Outdoor Tennis Courts?
There are two options, and both are pole mounted solutions.
If the poles are mounted near the perimeter of the court, then a shoebox style light is a good option. It is important that you choose the right type of optic package with these lights - some are particularly good at lighting up courts and not the area behind the courts. These are considered 'forward-throw' optics, and most shoebox lights meant for parking lots are not meant for tennis courts.
If the poles are mounted further back, a flood light is a great option to light up the outdoor court area. The flood light power and beam angle you need relies completely on your requirements and physical locations of the poles.
How Can You Improve Your Indoor Tennis Courts with LED Lighting?
The quality of light far exceeds metal halide and fluorescent lights, without all the hassle these lights have. The light quality and light levels will last a long time, and with proper planning, you can achieve balanced lighting across the playing surface.
LED Flood Light 400 Watt With Pole Mount
600 Watt LED Tennis Court Light
What Are the Appropriate Lighting Levels for Recreation / Amateur / Professional Tennis Applications?
| Tennis Level | Suggested Foot Candles |
| Recreation Level Lighting | 20 fc - 35 fc |
| Club Level Tennis Lighting | 30 fc - 60 fc |
| Competition Level Tennis Lighting | 50 fc - 80 fc |
| College / NCAA Level Tennis Lighting (televised) | 90 fc - 120 fc |
Before You Buy
What Would You Recommend for Tennis Court Lights?
More so than recommending a specific light, start with a lighting plan. Try to decide how much light you need, and determine the poles’ configurations and height.
How Much Do Tennis Court Lights Cost?
Tennis lights are not expensive, and many of the lights we’ve used to light up tennis courts are affordable, with our UFO high bay starting from $116.
How to Estimate the Ideal LED Lighting for an Outdoor Tennis Court?
Always start with a lighting plan. A lighting plan will give you a report on how many foot candles you’d need across the court, the balance of light from baseline to baseline, the number of lights you’d need, as well as the pole/ceiling mounting locations.
What Is the Best Lighting Distribution for Outdoor Tennis Court Lighting?
In the world of LED, we can take advantage of well designed optic packages, and the ones we see work best are ‘forward throw’ optics. These optic packages throw their generated light forwards onto the court, and not directly under the post. The goal is to get the center of the court lit as evenly as the edges of the court.
It's easier to light up an indoor court. Like a gym, lights can be hung from the ceiling. It is relatively easy to hit light targets from above and have the light extremely well balanced.
How to Design Indirect Indoor Tennis Court Lighting?
Indirect lighting requires the use of reflective surfaces. The light points upwards typically and reflects off the ceiling and back down. The advantage of this type of lighting is that it is a great solution if you are trying to reduce glare.
The disadvantage is the fact that it takes a lot more light to get to a certain foot candle level if the light is pointing downwards.
How Many Lumens to Light a Tennis Court?
When lighting up a tennis court, we recommend that you determine the light levels you want (foot candles), and then create a lighting plan to achieve those light levels. A lighting plan will give you a visual report of foot candle readings across the court, along with the fixtures used to achieve the results and lumens per fixture.
What Is the Best Color Temperature for Tennis Court Lights?
Our customers ask first for 5000K, and 4000K is also available, but is rarely used. Those are both great options.
Fixtures and Fittings
Are Tennis Court Lights 1000 Watt?
If you are talking strictly metal halide and high pressure sodium, 1000 Watt and 400 Watt are the most common light options. If you are talking about LED lights, the wattage needed to replace both of those lights is much less.
What Beam Angle Is Ideal for Tennis Court Lights?
Wide beam angles are best. Tight beam angles are good for stadium lights, but we’d only recommend that if you are lighting up the US Open stadium.
Installation
What Are the Common Tennis Court Fixture Mounting Methods?
For outdoor tennis court lights, they are typically pole mounted fixtures, and the most common mount is slip fitter and straight arm pole mount.
For indoor courts, ceiling mounting options include eye hook, pendant mount and wire/chain suspended mount.
How Far Should Light Posts Be Placed Outside a Tennis Court for Lighting?
Close enough so the light can reach the center of the court and far enough away so as not to interfere with play.
What Are Your Recommendations for Wiring Tennis Court Lights?
Wiring is simple as there are only three wires - line, neutral and ground.
Tennis Court Lighting Plans
Being able to light up a tennis court with bright light is what lighting plans help to achieve. Making sure the foot candle levels are right and the light is evenly distributed are the ways to make a conversion to led lighting successful.
Lighting plans simulate both indoor and outdoor tennis courts and allows us to add lights into your existing pole or ceiling locations. We can then calculate light levels and how evenly distributed the light is across the tennis playing surface.
