The home stadium of the Dallas Cowboys professional football team and Bridgestone Arena in Nashville are the latest major venues to adopt LED-based sports lighting to illuminate the playing field.
Musco Lighting has announced that it supplied LED-based lighting to AT&T Stadium, often referred to as Jerry World in honor of flamboyant owner Jerry Jones, and home of the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL). Ephesus Lighting has announced another sports-lighting project with SSL being installed at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, TN — home of the Nashville Predators of the National Hockey League (NHL).
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Professional football
The Cowboys stadium becomes the second NFL venue to be lit with LEDs. As we covered early this year, the Super Bowl was played in February at the University of Phoenix stadium in Glendale, AZ, which had SSL installed before the start of the 2014 NFL season. In both cases, the LED-based sports lighting improves visibility for players and spectators, and improves the quality of HDTV broadcasts for fans watching from home.
The Dallas project, however, is in what's considered to be the most lavish of all NFL venues and the Cowboys are arguably the league's most popular team. The new lighting is sure to be scrutinized by fans, league officials, and the boisterous owner.
"We are thrilled to partner with the Dallas Cowboys to deliver a solution for the lighting needs of such a prestigious venue," said Jeff Rogers, vice president of Musco Lighting. "Our system maximizes energy efficiency, provides ideal lighting for HD television broadcasts, and includes special effects capabilities that will provide an unmatched entertainment experience."
The installation is based on Musco's SportsCluster Green system. The company said it used custom optics to focus the light on the playing surface while not creating glare for players or spectators. LEDs allowed the team to increase light levels by 42% while reducing energy usage by 76%.
Hockey in Nashville
Meanwhile, the Ephesus project is just being installed with the start of the NHL season coming this month. The company has prior experience lighting a professional-level ice arena, having supplied sports lighting products to the home of the Ottawa Senators in 2014. The Nashville project will receive extra attention with the NHL All-Star game coming to the facility in early 2016.
"The combination of the improved lighting and fan entertainment elements coupled with the environmental benefits and lower operating costs made this solution an easy choice to add to our upgrades to the Bridgestone Arena this summer," said Tim Friedenberger, vice president of facility operations for Bridgestone Arena. "We are especially excited about showcasing the new system during NHL All-Star Weekend, when the eyes of the hockey world are upon Nashville."
The Bridgestone project includes interior sports lighting with color-tuning capability and the company's Prism full color luminaires are deployed both inside and outside of the arena. A DMX control system will allow the team to generate dynamic and colorful light shows. Still, the use of LEDs allowed the arena to reduce the number of fixtures by half relative to the prior lighting.
"The system provides us greater control over the lighting than ever before," said Bob Kohl, senior director of broadcasting and entertainment for the Predators. "Everything will look better and crisper for fans at the arena, viewers watching at home, and the players, who will appreciate the elimination of shadows and glare on the playing surface."
