Dr. J Robert Cade and the Invention of Gatorade

In the mid 1960s, Dr. J Robert Cade was a researcher at the University of Florida and he was concerned about how the football coaches were treating their players. He realized that depriving players of water and force two-a-day practices would not produce tougher players, just make them more susceptible to dehydration, injury, and heat stroke. To help, he created a drink to help increase performance by keeping players hydrated. His invention came to be known as "Gatorade" and is now the most popular sports drink in the country.

Dr. Cade developed Gatorade after conducting a study in 1965 in which he found that players could lose as much as nine pounds through sweat during a single football practice. Obviously, this was not healthy, so Dr. Cade and his team set out to invent a drink that would replace the electrolytes that players lost during practices and games. Less than a year later, Dr. Cade had invented the world's most beloved sports drink.

Partially thanks the performance enhancing properties of Gatorade, the Gators enjoyed a 9-2 season, an Orange Bowl victory, and a Heisman Trophy in 1966. Its inventor did not take claim for the victories and merely said that it contained nothing either revolutionary or harmful. The rest of the world, however, realized that it was indeed revolutionary and, after being marketed as a "thirst quencher," it became an instant success.

It became so successful, in fact, that the University of Florida has made over $150,000,000 over the years from the royalties on the drink. Every year, Americans consume 7,000,000,000 bottles of Gatorade and Gatorade currently enjoys an 80% market share of sports drinks in the United States. that percentage may slowly wane thanks to the introduction of imitators and numerous energy drinks, but Gatorade remains the most popular sports drink in the world by far.