More Than Just Bulbs: 5 Engineering Mistakes Facility Managers Forget in an LED Sports Lighting Upgrade

by mhairi

You’re planning a major LED lighting upgrade. You’ve already done the basic ROI math on energy savings and maintenance reduction. You’re researching lumens, TCO, and photometric plots. But you likely have a nagging feeling that the “one-to-one swap” quotes you’re getting from product distributors seem too simple.

You are right to be skeptical. An LED retrofit isn’t a product purchase; it’s a complex engineering project.

This guide moves beyond product specs to focus on the structural and engineering risks that are critical to a project’s success. This is the direct, field-tested truth from a team of installers and engineers.

Key Takeaways

  • TCO vs. Fixture Cost: The cheapest fixture is never the cheapest project . Your real ROI comes from eliminating maintenance and lift rentals, not just energy savings.
  • Structural Liability: Assuming your old poles can handle new lights is the single biggest liability you can take on. New fixtures have different wind-loads that require an engineer’s sign-off .
  • Hidden Costs: Rusted mounts, custom bracket fabrication, and aging electrical infrastructure are all LED sports lighting hidden costs that are left out of a simple product quote .
  • Project Conflicts: Planning your lighting and netting upgrades separately is a classic mistake. It guarantees you will pay for engineering, mobilization, and installation twice .

The “Table Stakes”: 2 Mistakes Everyone Knows (But Still Get Wrong)

You’re a technical manager, so you already know the basics. You know an LED upgrade will save energy, and you know you need a “lighting layout.”

But there’s a big difference between knowing these things and getting them right.

Most of the articles you’ll find are written by product distributors. They’re focused on selling you a box. As a team of engineers and installers, we focus on the entire project . Here is our in-field perspective on the two mistakes that are easy to make and costly to fix.

Mistake #1: Focusing on Fixture Cost, Not Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Looking at the sticker price of a fixture is the fastest way to get a project wrong. The cheapest fixture is almost never the cheapest project.

Your real costs aren’t in the hardware; they’re hidden in future energy bills, maintenance hours, and lift rentals. That’s the data you need for your ROI projection.

Let’s be direct with the math.

A 1,500-watt metal halide fixture costs approximately $1,200 per year to operate (based on $0.14/kWh, 10 hours per day, per Natural Resources Canada / EIA data).

The standard LED replacement is a 600-watt fixture, delivering the same or better illumination while cutting energy use by about 60%, reducing annual operating cost to roughly $480 — a savings of about $720 per fixture per year.

Beyond energy savings, the true payback also comes from eliminating:

  • $500 lift rental fees every six months
  • Two-person crew labor costs for maintenance and replacements
  • Administrative time managing constant relamping cycles

When you factor in these savings, the upgrade quickly pays for itself — and doing it right the first time ensures a smooth, efficient project with no costly rework.

Mistake #2: Accepting a “Lighting Layout” Instead of an Engineered Photometric Plan

This is a critical distinction. A “lighting layout” is often just a sales diagram showing where lights will go. An engineered photometric lighting analysis is a non-negotiable proof of performance.

A true photometric plan is a computer model of your exact facility. It proves, with data, that the design will deliver:

  • Precise foot-candle levels across the entire surface.
  • High uniformity (no hot spots or dark patches).
  • Zero off-site light spill or glare that impacts neighbours.

Ask any vendor if their plan is compliant with IES (Illuminating Engineering Society) standards for your specific class of play. If they don’t know what that means, they aren’t an engineering partner.

The “Hidden Disasters”: 3 Engineering Mistakes Product-Sellers Ignore

Here is where we see projects fail. These are the critical, high-stakes items that product-focused distributors and unqualified sports lighting contractors will not talk about.

Mistake #3: Assuming Your Old Poles Can Handle New Lights (The Liability Gap)

This is the single most dangerous and most “forgotten” item. You cannot “just swap” fixtures. It’s like putting a modern, high-performance engine into a car with a rusted-out frame.

Why it’s a trap: The new LEDs are lighter, but they have a different shape and catch the wind like a sail. This creates a different lighting pole wind load (EPA) than the 30-year-old metal halides. Bolting a new, unapproved load onto an aging, un-certified pole is a massive liability. As the facility engineer, that liability falls on you.

We were called to inspect a new competitor install that ‘saved money’ by reusing old wood poles. Our structural engineering for lighting poles review found the poles were not rated for the wind-load of the new LEDs [(external link to ASCE resource on EPA)]. The entire project had to be redone 12 months later to avoid catastrophic failure. It’s a risk our in-house engineers will never take.

Mistake #4: Forgetting the “Hidden Costs” in Brackets, Mounts, and Wiring

A product quote only includes the light. An installation quote must include everything that holds it up.

  • The Bracket Trap: Those 30-year-old brackets are likely rusted and will not match the bolt pattern of the new LEDs. This means custom fabrication is required—a “hidden cost” that a distributor’s quote will never include.
  • The Electrical Trap: Is your existing panel and wiring sufficient for the new drivers? Or will it all need to be pulled and replaced? A simple “product” quote doesn’t include this.

“As installers, we plan for this. We assume every bracket will need custom fabrication and every junction box is corroded. A real project quote, backed by craftsmanship, accounts for the work, not just the product.”

Mistake #5: Treating Lighting as a Standalone Project (The Coordination Nightmare)

This is the ultimate hidden cost: project conflict.

You have a netting project coming up next year. What happens when the lighting-only contractor you hired this year puts their new 80ft pole exactly where your new netting barrier pole needs to go?

You get a “nightmare of change-orders”. You pay for engineering twice. You pay for mobilization and lift rentals twice.

This is the biggest headache for a facility manager and the #1 problem we solve. As an integrated, multi-system installer, we design the lighting, netting, and turf systems to work as one from day one.

Key Takeaway: “Hiring separate, uncoordinated contractors for lighting and netting is the most expensive way to do a project. You are paying for mobilization, engineering, and lift rentals twice.”

Conclusion

A successful LED retrofit isn’t about buying a product; it’s about managing risk.

It’s about finding a single, accountable partner who can provide the verifiable ROI data you need to get the project approved, and the in-house engineering and installation expertise to ensure it’s built safely, reliably, and to code.

Your Next Step

Don’t just get a product quote. Get a complete project assessment. Contact our team of engineers to review your facility’s structural and electrical needs before you buy a single light.

A Final Thought from Our Engineer: “A product quote is easy. A successful project is hard. It’s built on-site, not on a spec sheet. That’s the difference between a supplier and a partner.”

About the Author: Mark Wilson is the founder of Netex Netting (Netex Canada Netting Inc.), a global leader in golf and baseball netting systems. With 47+ years of net-building expertise, he pioneered low-drag Dyneema® golf nets and designs integrated pole, lighting, and turf solutions. Netex delivers precision installations worldwide and stands behind them with industry-leading warranties.