By Jonny Amon, Calling the Audible
“LIGHT THE BEAM” was the common refrain being used by Sacramento Kings fans throughout the 2022-2023 season. After building a solid core through smart drafting and savvy trades, the California team looked like a difficult matchup for many of the Western Conference teams.
After each win, the Kings would send a huge beacon of light into outer space from the stadium, letting all the locals know that their favorite team had notched one more win on the road to destiny.
The team, headlined by De’Aaron Fox, Malik Monk, and Domantas Sabonis, had fans believing that they might make a deep playoff push for the first time since 2006.
In the end, the trio fell to playoff stalwarts, the Golden State Warriors, pushing the game to an epic Game 7 conclusion. While the team had pundits and fans around the league talking, the beam became its own cultural touchpoint.
Fans loved it. The players got in on it, with forward Kevin Huerter coining the phrase the “#BeamTeam”. The ceremony gave an extra emphasis to the team’s accomplishments and energized the fanbase.
The celebration, however, was questioned by some. Radio sports personality Colin Cowherd was critical of the beam, claiming that the beam “feels like an egregious waste of energy”. It did not take long for local reporters and fans to debunk this claim before things got out of hand.
In a follow up article, Michael McGough of the Sacramento Bee broke down the numbers, finding that light the beam uses 1,800 watts worth of lasers, or about the same energy as running the dishes. The Kings could choose to light the beam 24 hours a day for 7 days a week and it would still only make up 0.1% of the arena’s total energy usage.
Which leads to another important fact, the Kings’ stadium, the Golden 1 Center, is run entirely by solar energy. It was also the first indoor sports arena to receive LEED Platinum certification from the US Green Building Council, the highest level attainable.
The stadium gets its power from two arrays, about 15% from an onsite set up, the remaining energy a bit out of the way at SMUD Seco Rancho Solar PV Park handles the remaining 85%. This commitment to solar energy makes the Sacramento Kings an example for other teams to follow in the near future.
The ending message is this: we need more beams, and if we use the right power sources, there is no reason not to celebrate big wins from our favorite teams.
SportsDay contributor Jonny Amon is a lifelong sports fan from Daytona Beach, Fla. In college at Georgetown University, he wrote about both college and professional sports for the Georgetown Voice, the school newsmagazine. Having recently graduated with a Master’s in sustainability, Jonny is now writing a newsletter about the intersection of sports and climate, looking to highlight the increasing overlap between the two topics.
