Detroit team colors on your roofline, game day to game day
Red is easy. Honolulu blue takes some tuning, and silver has to be faked with white. Here is how each Detroit team's colors actually look in light, and how to put them on a schedule.
Getting team colors right on LEDs
Team color lights on a house are easiest with permanent full-color LEDs along the roofline. You pick the colors from your phone on game day, run them on the front of the house, and switch back to warm white the next night.
The catch is that a team's colors were chosen for fabric, paint and screens, not for light. A jersey color is light bouncing off cloth. A roofline LED is a point of light shining at you. Some colors survive that change almost perfectly. Others need adjusting, and one, silver, cannot be made at all because it is a metal finish, not a color of light.
Team color reference sites list the following shades. The hex codes are the screen versions, which makes them a good starting point on a color picker and nothing more. Always judge the final look from the street after dark.
| Team | Listed colors | Hex codes | How it reads on LEDs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lions | Honolulu blue, silver (black and white also listed) | #0076B6, #B0B7BC | Blue needs a little green added; silver becomes a cool white |
| Tigers | Navy, orange | #0C2340, #FA4616 | Orange is close; navy shows as a deep blue at lower brightness |
| Red Wings | Red, white | #CE1126, #FFFFFF | The easiest pair on any roofline |
| Pistons | Red, royal blue, with navy and gray | #C8102E, #1D42BA | Red and royal blue both come out strong |
The white diode matters here more than people expect. On an RGBW fixture, white comes from its own emitter, so the white in Red Wings and Pistons colors looks like real white instead of a pinkish or bluish blend. Our guide to RGBW vs RGB permanent lights explains why that separate diode changes the result.
Lions: Honolulu blue and silver
According to the Detroit Historical Society, the Lions first wore blue with silver trim in 1934, their first season in Detroit, and the Honolulu blue name does not appear in connection with the Lions until 1948. It is the hardest Detroit color to get right on a roofline, for two reasons.
First, Honolulu blue is not a pure blue. Its listed hex code carries no red, a fair amount of green and a lot of blue, which is why it looks bright and slightly toward the sea. A blue diode on its own is a deeper, purer blue. To get closer, add a small amount of green to the blue. Add too much and the house turns teal, which is the wrong team.
Second, silver does not exist as light. What your eye calls silver on a helmet is gray metal catching highlights. The closest thing a roofline can do is a cool white, run a little dimmer than the blue so the blue stays in charge. If the peaks are their own zone, a steady Honolulu blue on the eaves with the peaks in cool white reads as Lions from the street better than an even split does. With one front zone, alternate blue and cool white along the run instead.
- Blue: start from the listed hex, then pull the green up or down while someone stands at the curb.
- Silver: use a cool white, tinted slightly blue, below the brightness of the blue.
- Pattern: alternating blue and white along the eaves looks busy on a short ranch and good on a long colonial.
Thanksgiving is the biggest Lions date on the calendar for house lights. The Pro Football Hall of Fame notes the Lions have hosted a Thanksgiving game every year starting with their first Detroit season, apart from a break from 1939 to 1944. In 2026 that is Thursday, November 26, right before many houses switch to Christmas colors.
Tigers: navy and orange
The Tigers' listed colors are navy and orange, and the two behave very differently in light. Orange is the friendly one. The listed orange is a red-orange, mostly red with some green, and an RGB mix gets close to it. Watch that it does not drift yellow. If it starts to look like a caution light, pull the green back.
Navy is the problem. It is a dark color, and a light cannot be dark. The same blue diode at full output looks like a bright royal blue, which is not what anyone at the ballpark is wearing. The fix is brightness. Run the blue well below the orange so it reads as a deep, quiet blue behind the orange accents.
Baseball changes the schedule math. A summer night game starts in daylight. The U.S. Naval Observatory puts sunset in Detroit after 9 pm around the June solstice, so a roofline that switches on at dusk lights up late in the game, not at first pitch. That is fine. The house is lit for the drive home and the postgame, which is when the neighbors see it.
Red Wings: red and white
Red and white is the easiest team pair to put on a house. A red diode on its own is already a deep, saturated red, and the listed Red Wings red sits very close to it. The white comes from the white diode, so it is clean. You rarely need to tune anything.
Two Michigan details are worth knowing before hockey season starts.
- Red brick swallows red. Many ranches and colonials in Macomb and Oakland County are faced in red or orange brick. Red light on red brick blends in. If the peaks are their own zone, let the white carry the eaves and put the red on the peaks. Otherwise alternate the two so the pattern does the work.
- Red and white can look like Christmas. From October through April the hockey season overlaps the holidays, and red and white on a snowy lawn reads as candy cane to anyone driving by. If you want it to read as hockey, keep the pattern steady and bold, and save soft twinkling for December.
Snow helps, too. A white lawn throws the roofline's light back up at the house, so red and white look brighter on a January game night than they did in October.
Pistons: red, white and blue
The Pistons' listed palette is red and royal blue, with navy and gray as supporting shades. Both main colors are strong on LEDs. The red is almost identical to the Red Wings red, and the royal blue is a purer blue than Honolulu blue, which means a blue diode gets close with little tuning. Add white from the white diode and you have the full red, white and blue look.
That also means a Pistons roofline and a Fourth of July roofline look much the same from the street. The difference is mostly in how you use it. For the Pistons, lean on red and blue in solid blocks, with white as the thinner accent. For the Fourth, many people give each color an equal share. Our red, white and blue roofline guide covers the flag version.
Gray shows up on a roofline the same way silver does, as a softer white. Most houses skip it.
Game-day schedules
The controller handles colors, zones, brightness, schedules and effects. Here is a simple routine that keeps team colors from taking over the house:
- Pick the team zone. The front gables and eaves face the street, so they carry the colors. The garage roofline can stay warm white for anyone coming and going.
- Set the colors before dusk. Change the front zone on game day, or the night before if you want the house dressed for a morning tailgate drive.
- Keep the dusk start. Let the schedule turn the lights on at dusk as usual, and push the off time past the end of the game if it runs late.
- Go back to everyday. The next night, return the front to warm white, unless a playoff week is on (see below).
Winter sports make this easy. The Naval Observatory puts Detroit's sunset just after 5 pm around the December solstice, so on a Red Wings or Pistons night the roofline is lit hours before the puck drops or the ball goes up. Football and baseball are the ones where daylight cuts into the show.
Some questions only the controller in front of you can answer. Ask at the estimate whether a schedule can change colors on its own or whether you set game-day colors by hand, whether you can save a team look and bring it back next week, and whether other people in the house can run the lights from their phones. The rest of those controller questions are in how phone control, zones and schedules work.
Playoff weeks and big wins
A single game night is a small gesture. A playoff run is where team colors on the roofline earn their keep. When a Detroit team is in the postseason, leave the colors up all week, not just on game nights. A house that stays blue from Monday to Sunday says more than one that flickers on for three hours.
After a big win, effects are the tool. Steady light looks like trim. A slow chase or alternating pattern reads as a celebration, which is exactly right the night after a clinching game and a bit much on an ordinary Tuesday in February. On those nights, drop the brightness a notch if the house across the street sits close.
When two seasons overlap, and in Michigan they often do, zones settle it. A September Sunday can run Lions blue on the front while the Tigers are still playing. Put one team on the front and the other on the garage, or give each team its own nights. The holiday color calendar fills in the nights between seasons.
A typical ranch in Macomb Township runs 60 to 80 feet of front roofline, which puts permanent lights at $1,300–$2,000 for 60 feet or $1,800–$2,700 for 80 feet, installed once. Every team on this page comes from the same fixture, along with warm white for the other nights. Measure your roofline from one photo to see where your house lands, then request an estimate and tell us which teams you cheer for so we can plan the zones around game day.
Questions about this
Can I put a team logo on my roofline?
No. A roofline is a single line of lights along the eaves and peaks, so it shows color and movement, not pictures or letters. Team colors in the right proportions are what make the house read as Lions or Red Wings from the street.
Can I show two teams at the same time?
Yes, if they sit on separate zones. The front can carry one team while the garage carries the other. On a short ranch with one front zone, it usually looks better to give each team its own nights than to split one run of lights.
Will the lights match the jersey exactly?
Red, royal blue and orange come very close. Honolulu blue needs some tuning, navy always looks brighter than it does on fabric, and silver and gray can only be shown as a cool or soft white. Set the final look from the curb at night, not from your phone screen.
Sources
- Detroit Historical Society, The story of Honolulu blue detroithistorical.org
- Pro Football Hall of Fame, Thanksgiving and the NFL profootballhof.com
- Team Color Codes, Detroit Lions color codes teamcolorcodes.com
- Team Color Codes, Detroit Tigers color codes teamcolorcodes.com
- Team Color Codes, Detroit Red Wings color codes teamcolorcodes.com
- Team Color Codes, Detroit Pistons color codes teamcolorcodes.com
- U.S. Naval Observatory, Complete Sun and Moon Data for One Day (Detroit, 2026) aa.usno.navy.mil