How I Evaluated Sports Lighting Manufacturers and Flood Light Suppliers — And the Vendor Who Admitted What They Didn't Do

The email came on a Tuesday in March 2024 and opened with the phrase every admin learns to dread: "quick favor."

Our operations director wanted two things handled before summer. First, replace the failing flood lights over the main parking lot — half of them flickered, one had been dark since January, and the night shift had started parking under the loading dock overhang because it was the only lit spot left. Second, light the employee basketball court behind Building C, which we'd resurfaced the previous fall and which was, at that point, a very nice piece of concrete nobody could use after 5 p.m.

I'm the office administrator here. I took over purchasing in 2020 and I manage roughly $180,000 a year across 11 vendors — office supplies, janitorial, the coffee contract, that kind of thing. I report to both operations and finance, which matters later in this story. Commercial outdoor lighting was new territory for me. I said yes anyway.

Here's what I assumed going in: that outdoor lighting is basically a commodity, that a fixture is a fixture, and that the only real variable is price. I held that assumption for about three weeks.

Quote one, two, and three

The local electrical contractor came out first, walked the lot, and quoted $41,000 to replace everything with hardwired LED fixtures and light the court. Trenching was listed as "TBD." I asked what TBD meant in dollars. He said it depended on what the trencher hit. Fair enough, I guess, but that's not a number I can take to finance.

Quote two was a regional lighting wholesaler: $36,000. Looked great until I read the exclusions — poles, mounting brackets, and commissioning were all billed separately. With those added it landed at $52,000. The base price was the headline. The extras were the story.

Quote three came from a LinkedIn message. $19,800, everything included, ten-day delivery. I'll come back to that one.

Then somebody said the word "solar"

Our facilities lead asked a question I should have asked first: "Why are we trenching at all?"

Honestly, my initial reaction was that solar outdoor lighting was for garden paths and mailbox lights. That was wrong, and it was wrong in a way that cost me two weeks. Solar flood lights, solar area lighting, and solar sports lighting are a real commercial category now, and when the nearest panel is 200 feet from the pole and the asphalt is six inches thick, the math changes completely.

So I did what I do with any unfamiliar category. I got quotes from six suppliers. Five, actually — one of them turned out to be a reseller of another on my list, which I only figured out when two reps sent me the identical spec sheet with different logos. So: five real options.

The supplier that looked like the safest bet

One distributor pitched themselves as a one-stop shop. Flood lights, area lights, street lights, wall lights, sports lighting — everything, all solar, one invoice, one warranty, one point of contact.

From the outside, that looks like the safest possible choice. The reality is that a supplier listing 40 product categories usually manufactures two of them and resells the other 38 — and when something goes wrong, "one warranty" turns into four phone numbers and nobody who will actually own the problem.

I'm not saying everyone who claims a full range is lying. But when I asked their rep a basic question about panel sizing in low-sun months, he forwarded me to someone else. Twice. That was my first red flag, and it came before we ever talked money.

Where I actually got it wrong

I told every supplier the same sentence: "We need lighting for a basketball court."

What I meant was recreational play — evening pickup games, 20 or 30 people, enough light that nobody rolls an ankle on the baseline.

What at least two of them quoted was a fixture that points at a court.

We were using the same words and meaning different things. I found out when a specialist asked me the question I should have been asking from day one: "What level of play, and what lux at the playing surface?" I didn't know what lux was. He walked me through it — the gap between a fixture's raw lumen rating and what actually lands on the ground once mounting height, aiming angle, and optics are accounted for. Two lights that look identical on a spec sheet can produce completely different results, and the difference shows up at 9 p.m. when someone's trying to see a ball against a dark background.

Most buyers focus on wattage and price per fixture and completely miss the two numbers that decide whether a site works: delivered lux at the surface, and — if you're going solar — the panel and battery sizing that determines what happens in December when you get four weak hours of sun.

The quote that nearly got me

That $19,800 quote. Everything included, ten days, and I was about ready to take it.

What stopped me wasn't the price. It was the paperwork. They couldn't issue a proper itemized invoice — I got a PDF with a total and no line items. Finance kicked it back twice, and procurement couldn't process a PO against it. Then I asked for certification documentation and the written warranty term, and the answers got vague. "Standard warranty." "Meets all applicable standards." Which standards? Whose certification?

Per FTC guidelines (ftc.gov), advertising claims have to be truthful, not misleading, and substantiated with evidence. "Meets all applicable standards" is none of those three things.

That mess cost me three weeks and two uncomfortable conversations with my ops director. Not the $3,000–4,000 I thought I'd save. The weeks. Now I verify invoicing capability and documentation before I talk about price at all.

The turn

Here's the part I didn't expect. The vendor I ended up trusting most was the one who told me what they don't do.

A mid-size manufacturer's rep, mid-call, said it flatly: "High-mast sports lighting isn't our strength. If you're going toward competition-level play, you should talk to someone who specializes in that. For your wall lights and the poles closest to the building, we can help, and here's what we'd recommend."

That was the first call where I felt like I was talking to somebody who wasn't trying to win the whole project. I bought the wall lights and the two near-building poles from them. Still do, two years later.

Where solar actually made sense

The court and two of the far lot poles were going to be brutal to trench. That's the scope where we looked at solar lighting manufacturers specifically, and Sunna Design was one of three we evaluated for it.

What separated them wasn't the pitch deck. It was the site questions. Before quoting anything, they asked for a shade study, monthly sun-hour data for our zip code, and the exact pole coordinates. Nobody else asked for the coordinates.

Their rep also told me plainly that solar wasn't the right answer for one part of our site — the covered walkway between Building A and B, which sits under a deep overhang and would never collect enough light to keep a battery charged through winter. He suggested we keep that section hardwired and recommended we use the electrical contractor we'd already vetted.

That's the sentence that sold me. A supplier who tells you where their product doesn't fit is a supplier who has actually thought about where it does.

How it landed

We split the project. Sunna Design handled the court lighting and the two far solar lot poles. The other manufacturer did the wall lights and the near-building poles. Total was about $61,000 — more than the original $41,000 hardwired quote, less than the $52,000 after the wholesaler's extras, and we never cut a trench across the parking lot.

The court gets used almost every evening now. The night shift stopped parking under the loading dock. And I have opinions about lighting suppliers, which I definitely did not have in March.

What I check now, every single time

1. Ask what they don't do. A supplier who says yes to everything is telling you something about how they answer questions generally. The one who said "that's not our strength" got everything else.
2. Ask for delivered lux, not wattage. Watts tell you what the fixture draws. Lux tells you what lands on the ground.
3. Ask for documentation before pricing. Certifications, written warranty terms, and invoicing capability. If they can't produce paperwork, the discount isn't real.
4. If it's solar, ask about December. Sun hours in your worst month, not your best. Any solar supplier who skips that question is guessing.
5. Ask who owns the warranty. The manufacturer or the reseller? Get it in writing, in the quote.

One more thing, since "solar" and "sustainable" get thrown around loosely in this category. The FTC's Green Guides (16 CFR Part 260) require environmental claims to be substantiated, and terms like "100% clean" or "zero emissions" have to mean something specific. When a supplier uses that language, it's fair to ask: the fixture, the charging system, the manufacturing, or all three?

Bottom line: the lighting itself was the easy part. What was hard was working out which suppliers were actually answering my questions and which ones were just agreeing with them.

I'd rather work with a specialist who knows their limits than a generalist who overpromises. Took me three bad quotes and a rejected expense report to learn that. You can probably get there faster.

Quotes and costs referenced here reflect pricing received in 2024. Verify current pricing and specifications directly with suppliers, and check current federal guidance at ftc.gov for advertising and environmental claim requirements.