Whenever I have noticed upgrades from non-LED lighting to LED lighting, I have noticed that throughout North America at least in greater Los Angeles, I still see plenty of probe start metal halide lamps still being used for lighting sports fields even in 2026 while most other applications have predominantly transitioned to LED lighting. I wonder why metal halide fixtures still continue to persist in 2026 for sports lighting applications in North America while many other lighting applications switched over to LED.

I don't know much of the matter but here's my guess.

This might be something like with HID grow lights (not the best analogy) where, even though the LEDs are vastly more efficient, they might require a much larger upfront investment that only pays off in the long term—and when a smaller sports stadium is used for under a third of the year, the LED replacements don't even get a chance to repay themselves, let alone start saving money.
Another simpler reason might be "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", and if a stadium owner already has spare PBMH lamps (which already require even less parts than PSMH), they might wait until it's exhausted before upgrading to LED.

It's a lot of work to climb those tall masts and replace the MH lamps.

Yeah the cost of a Musco Light Structure system, which is commonly used for sports lighting is fairly expensive, in the order of 100s of thousands of dollars for the poles, luminaires and installation so the cost of upgrading can be quite staggering for smaller municipally run fields funded only by local tax dollars.

There are still some municipally run fields in my area with HPS sports lighting because that was what was originally put in. I've also heard of small fields in other places with cheap energy using low cost lighting such as halogen under fairly recently.   

This has to do with ROI...by the time the LED luminaires pay for themselves, they'll be obsolete.   

A lil' off-topic but I can't wait for the technology that made others obsolete, to become obsolete itself. Justice, one might say.

Just you wait, in the year 2075 people will be yearning for LED lamps and lamenting the evil [new tech] industry that has displaced all LEDs!

Same thing happened when diesel locomotives took over the rails, and later when electrics took over, people lamented the disappereance of diesels.

Yep, the now mundane LEDs would become rare and the integrated POS bricks would attain the status of an OV-15. Not that I'm a fan of this idea.
It's really an interesting part of human nature; anything that was part of the world while you were growing up is "normal" or "boring", and that which replaces it is "bad".