Attend any professional sporting event or view one on TV and look at any player on the sidelines. Odds are, if they’re not drinking water, they’re probably drinking Gatorade. Why Gatorade?  How has a beverage created by a research team at the University of Florida blossomed into a dominant behemoth of America’s sports drink industry controlling seventy-five percent of the market?

In 1965, following an appeal from University of Florida Gators football coach Ray Graves, a research team at UF formulated a drink containing water, sodium, sugar, potassium, phosphate, and lemon juice (not quite as tasty as  Gatorade Logo, Courtesy of logoeps.net today, huh?) promised to boost energy and replace body fluids exerted during physical activity. The miracle beverage worked like a charm. Florida instantly became a better second-half team and even won the Orange Bowl that season. After Florida’s story of success, other college football coaches scrambled to get their hands on Gatorade, which originally was called Gator-aid, since it literally aided the Florida Gators on the football field. Shockingly, nearly fifty years after the creation of Gatorade, the University of Florida still collects enormous multi-million dollar royalties on the beverage’s name.

One thing is for certain, though: Gatorade’s advertising has worked flawlessly. As the official sports drink of nearly every major professional sports league imaginable (AFL, NFL, MLB, NBA, WNBA, USA Basketball, NHL, various college and high school teams, as well as a multitude of popular athletes and world-renowned soccer teams), Gatorade’s influence is felt worldwide (Gatorade is sold in over eighty countries) and in almost every sport! Although Gatorade has changed over the years by adding flavors and altering its ingredients, one thing has remained constant. For both its (now-wealthy) founders and athletes, Gatorade has been a recipe for success.