I originally thought it would be cool to hold track cycling events inside a completely dark velodrome, illuminated only by the cyclists' LED bicycle lights, but after a little thought I concluded that all sports would be improved by being played in the dark.For ball sports like football, expensive floodlights would no longer be needed; The players would wear head mounted lights and the ball would be modified to emit light. Subtle differences in tactics would emerge between games played at different phases of the moon.-- hippo, Jan 22 2014 Beep Baseball http://www.mysports...ve/beepbaseball.htm [JesusHChrist, Jan 22 2014] Goalball http://www.mysports...aptive/goalball.htm [JesusHChrist, Jan 22 2014] Archery, with invisible targets! Boxing or fencing would be fun! Golf played at night by naughty boys sneaking onto the courses is wkte.-- pocmloc, Jan 22 2014 Goalball and Beep Baseball (links) are played in the blind community and both have methods of audifying the ball.-- JesusHChrist, Jan 22 2014 One of the most surreal games I've ever played is table football under a strobe light (~5hz). You can see where the ball is, but your brain just can't work out where it's going. I suppose this could improve many other sports.-- mitxela, Jan 22 2014 You're right - stadium floodlights should have a 'strobe' mode.-- hippo, Jan 22 2014 Football would turn into rugby. But rugby might turn into disco!-- bungston, Jan 22 2014 Well that would be another way to make sport more interesting - hang giant disco balls in front of the floodlights.-- hippo, Jan 22 2014 I think trying to play any team sport in pitch blackness, even with beacon lights on the players, would quickly devolve into organized clavicle fracturing. Nevertheless, I love the idea of this idea, so here's a bun.-- Alterother, Jan 22 2014 My friends & I tried ice hockey in the dark one time when a power outage hit the arena, but all that happened was the guys kept running into the each other, so no difference there.
When it was over, they claimed the final score was something like 104-97, but I said that was impossible. You see, I was a goalie and I had earned a shutout by turning the net around and pushing it up against the boards!-- Canuck, Jan 22 2014 Glow in the dark skeletons on the strips.-- calum, Jan 22 2014 Here's an alternative to mounting head lights on players' helmets and making the ball self illuminating.
Place electronic positional broadcasting devices on each player's helmet and within the ball.
Each player, and the ball, would be lit up by several narrow beam spotlights, evenly spaced around the stadium, which would automatically track the locators.
The ball would be lit up from all directions, each player would be lit from behind and from his sides. In particular, as a player turns his head, the lights shining on him from the direction his head is facing temporarily shut themselves off (or at least reduce their brightness), so that their light doesn't blind him.
To avoid putting too much light in one area when all the players stand close together, a computer which tracks the locations of all the players would tell specific spotlights to reduce their brightness on those occasions.
Although these lights are obviously more high-tech than the floodlights that they replace, but since so much less light is needed, they'll eventually pay for themselves in energy savings... and possibly through increased ticket sales.
Mitxela's suggestion, a strobe light for the ball, would be easy to implement. Unlike table football with a strobe, only the particular lights aimed at ball would need to flash; the players could be illuminated normally.-- goldbb, Jan 22 2014 random, halfbakery