Sports eyewear is a generic term that can refer to many different types of eyewear, from sports eyeglasses to goggles and even contact lenses. Different types of eyewear are better suited to particular sports than others.

Having said that, one thing is constant throughout, high performance, corrective and optically correct sports eyewear can have a very big effect on sporting performances. Better vision results in better performances.

A major bonus of sports eyewear is the protection it can offer the athlete. In the US alone there are nearly 40,000 sports related eye injuries every year. Safety goggles or eyeglasses with tough materials like polycarbonate lenses are very effective at protecting an athletes eyes. Especially in the skiing world, where ski goggles are compulsory. For kids especially, protective eyewear is a must as kids sports can often be wild and unruly and kids eyes could be put in considerable danger.

Outdoor sports eyewear must also take into account the dangers from prolonged sun exposure to the eyes and as such filter out harmful UV rays which can lead to permanent eye damage and diseases. Sailors and yachtsmen also need glare protection to prevent their vision being impaired by glare from the sun reflecting on the water.

Sports eyewear can also offer some other less well known advantages, such as color enhancement. Baseball players are known to wear glasses that filter out blue light and thus enabling them to see the baseball more clearly. Similarly, skiers wear amber or rose colored ski goggles that enable them to pick out the light gray shadows on a ski slope that indicate bumps and ridges in the snow and therefore stop them from hitting one and falling out.

Polarized lenses in sports eyewear cut out the glare and excess lighting and enable athletes to see more of the action, for example golfers are able to pick out the ball or green more easily.

Some sports require a different approach. Outdoor events that require long periods outside make the ability to clean eyewear difficult and therefore a contact lens solution may be more suitable. These can offer many of the same benefits as standard sports eyewear but with the convenience that disposable contact lenses can be thrown away and a new pair fitted, negating the need to clean anything. Other advantages include athletes who simply do not like or want to wear glasses. These can obscure peripheral vision or they may find they steam up too easily. Contacts get around this impediment.