This weekend’s Super Bowl won’t only be showcasing the NFL’s top football teams. It will also show off a new stadium lighting system that was created in Syracuse.
Ephesus Lighting founder Joe Casper is amazed at the publicity his company’s high-performance LED lights have been getting in the run-up to the Super Bowl. There’s been mention of the semi-conductor based technology in Forbes magazine, USA Today and the Washington Post. And the enhanced lighting fixtures have even made their way into deflate-gate conversations.
“Because with the Ephesus lights you could see the ball, the rotation, and everything, they could have picked up -- things like that.,” said Casper. “It puts Ephesus in the limelight.”
Ephesus was founded by Casper and his wife in Syracuse three years ago. Along with some former Lockheed engineers, they came up with a way to use energy saving LED technology in arenas and stadiums, something other lighting companies dismissed.
“Some of the larger lighting companies around today, the GEs the Phillips, they thought it was impossible to do. And that’s why they aren’t in the market,” said Casper.
Casper says these LED lights do more than just brighten the University of Phoenix Stadium that’s hosting the Super Bowl. They have an effect on an athlete’s performance.
"We’re actually helping the players see the ball better. We’re actually having a better perspective of how the ball is spinning, how it moves, it’s more uniform as it moves through shadows.”
Casper says it’s easy to turn lights on, change colors and add animation with this system. So you’ll see the lights featured at the halftime show featuring singer Katy Perry, displaying light shows not available in traditional lighting systems.
This week Ephesus announced that the Minnesota Vikings will use Ephesus Lights in they new stadium. And while the company basks in the Super Bowl spotlight, Casper promises he won’t forget the firms Syracuse roots.
"We started this company with the intention of creating jobs in Syracuse, so our whole goal is to keep this going and keep expanding.”
