A fantastic sporting event requires perfect lighting. Whether it's an amateur community stadium or a professional Olympic venue, lighting must meet two core requirements: a glare-free, shadow-free playing environment for athletes, and a clear, immersive visual experience for spectators and broadcasters.
The key to achieving this goal lies in matching the optimal optical light distribution for specific sports. Different field sizes, viewing angles, and speeds of movement require distinct beam patterns.
At Asahi Optics, we offer a two-track optical solution: 1) a comprehensive selection of public mold LED lenses to cost-effectively meet most common sporting scenarios; 2) robust fully customized optical design and development capabilities to create customized lighting effects for top-tier events with specialized requirements.
Public mold lenses cover mainstream sports scenarios
For mainstream applications such as gyms, school stadiums, and community sports fields, project budgets and development cycles are critical. Public mold (standard) lenses provide a market-proven, high-efficiency, turnkey solution.
Sports Lighting Lens Recommendations
Optimal lighting solutions for different sports scenarios
| Sport | Recommended Lens Type | Key Optical Objectives |
|---|---|---|
| Football / Rugby | Narrow beam (15°-30°) | Long-range projection, controlled spill light |
| Basketball / Badminton | Medium beam (60°-90°) | High vertical illumination, uniformity |
| Swimming pool | Anti-glare wide beam (90°+) | Uniformity on the water surface, strict glare control |
Advantages of standard LED lenses: No need for re-molding, low price, fast delivery, stable and reliable performance, making them the preferred choice for lighting manufacturers with fast response times.
Customized optics empower top-tier events
Professional and broadcast-quality venues, as well as specially shaped venues (such as diamond-shaped baseball fields and irregular extreme sports fields), have extremely demanding optical distribution requirements that cannot be met by standard standard molds.
In these cases, customized optics are the only solution.
- Requirements Analysis: We work with clients to analyze project requirements, including standards (such as EN 12193, FIBA), venue dimensions, fixture mounting location and height, required illumination uniformity (U1, U2), and glare rating (GR).
- Optical Design and Simulation: Our engineers use specialized software (such as LightTools) to perform freeform optical design and spot simulation, virtually testing and optimizing the light distribution curve on the computer to ensure it perfectly matches the venue's requirements.
- Prototyping and Light Distribution Testing: We quickly create molds and produce samples, conduct field measurements with a goniophotometer, generate IES/LDT files, and use the data to verify that the design meets standards, allowing for iterative optimization.
Selecting LED lenses for sports venues is a delicate balance between standardized efficiency and customized performance. There's no such thing as the best lens; there's only the lens best suited for a specific application.
Asahi Optics' core strength lies in providing clients with a "choice" approach, not a "yes" approach. We have a vast library of public molds to support rapid mass production, and we also have deep custom engineering capabilities to overcome technical challenges. This flexibility makes us a trusted strategic partner for lighting manufacturers. If you are currently designing a sports lighting project, please contact us for the latest requirements.