It's a humid summer evening in Gainesville, Florida in 1965. 37-year-old Dr. Robert Cade plops down on the living room sofa in his modest ranch house, exhausted. His wife, Mary, puts a hand on his shoulder as Cade takes off his thick glasses. The breeze from their rotary fan cools his overheated face. How was work, Bob? Well, Mary, I'll be honest, it wasn't great. After work, the fellas and I stopped by the Thirsty Gator for a pint or two just to talk about it. When Cade says the fellas, he means his research team. Cade is a world-renowned nephrologist, that's a kidney specialist, at the University of Florida. and for weeks he and his researchers have been working on a special assignment. Players on the university's football team, the Florida Gators, have been collapsing on the field from dehydration. The football stadium is built on swampland and the extreme humidity makes an 80-degree day feel unbearable even before the tackling drills start. But Kate and the team think they found a solution, as in a literal solution, a drink that will replenish the salts and fluids athletes lose when they sweat. Nothing like this exists on the market. It's a real breakthrough for science and for sports. Or at least, Cade had thought so, until he tasted it. Oh, Mary, you wouldn't believe how awful it was. Now, Bob, how bad could it be? Well, let me put it this way. As soon as I tried it, I threw up. So that's not good. Oh, no, probably not. For Dr. K, this setback is worse than just a queasy stomach. People are counting on him. The University of Florida has given him time and personnel for this project. They've even given him access to their student-athletes, so he can conduct experiments on the football players. And he doesn't want to come up empty-handed. But the stakes also go far beyond this one team at this one school. At this point in the 1960s, as many as 25 football players around the U.S. are dying from heat-related illnesses each year thanks to a poor understanding of hydration and a mistaken belief among coaches that playing through thirst builds physical toughness. As a physician, Cade knows how dangerous this thinking really is. But he also knows just how stubborn coaches and trainers can be, especially if their teams are winning. Dr. Cade will have to demonstrate that his solution helps athletic performance. But he can only do this if the players can actually choke it down. Mary rubs her husband's back in sympathy. Then suddenly, she stops. Bob, what if you added lemon juice? Would that help? Well, Mary, you're a genius. Where are you going? Well, to buy some lemons, of course. Are you okay to drive? Oh, I'll be fine. Just fine. And with that, Cade rushes to the nearest grocery and then barges into his lab with 60 lemons and a wild look in his eye. He doesn't know it yet, but these lemons are about to transform the very first prototype of the world's first electrolyte sports drink, Gatorade. This beverage will not only make the Florida Gators famous, it will invent the sports drink category, which is now a $29 billion a year global industry. But Dr. Cade set out to solve a medical problem, not build an empire. And as Gatorade grows far beyond the lab where it began, it will face a new question. How do you keep improving a solution once the world starts copying it? Inventing a category is only the beginning. Because once you define what sports hydration is, you're also responsible for keeping that definition relevant. Even as the science changes, the competition grows, and the stakes get higher. The question isn't whether Gatorade will become big. It's whether the drink that wrote the rules can keep rewriting them. From Audible Originals, I'm David Brown, and this is Business Wars. When Dr. Robert Cade and a small team of kidney specialists invented Gatorade over 60 years ago, the beverage aisles of American grocery stores looked pretty different. You might see green glass bottles of Coke and Pepsi along with RC Cola, Dr. Pepper, and other carbonated colas. What you wouldn't see are today's long rows of electrolyte-enhanced sports drinks from Gatorade to Powerade to Body Armor and beyond, all promising something more than just refreshment. They promised performance. Gatorade didn't just enter this market. It created it. And in doing so, it taught generations of athletes, from high school players to Olympic champions, How to think about sweat, thirst, and endurance. The first lemony experiment in a Gainesville lab became the blueprint for an entire industry. But creating a category, that's one thing. Staying on top is another. And as sports science evolves and as new brands promise cleaner, smarter, or more personalized hydration, Gatorade faces a different kind of challenge. The company that once defined sports hydration must operate in a world where that definition is constantly changing. This three-part series follows Gatorade's journey from the gridiron to the grocery aisle, and then to its heights as a billion-dollar empire. But as the rules of performance drinks change and more competitors enter the market, Gatorade now faces a different kind of challenge. Is it still driving the conversation on hydration? Or chasing it? This is Episode 1. Searching for a solution. It's late spring 1965 at the University of Florida. In the cafeteria, Dwayne Douglas grabs a tray of turkey tetrazzini and looks for a seat. Douglas is in his 30s. He's a large man who played offensive tackle for the Florida Gators before becoming an assistant coach for the team. These days, he balances coaching with his security job, keeping watch over the university's hospital. And Douglas is about to cause these two worlds to collide. As Douglas scans the cafeteria, he sees the man he's been looking for, Dana Shires, a research fellow in the school's Department of Renal Medicine. Shires is a friend and an up-and-coming kidney doctor, so he's the perfect person to answer the question that's been troubling Douglas. Hey, Dana, can I sit down? It's your thing, Dwayne. So, you know I coach on the football team, right? Yeah, sure. How's it going with Coach Graves? I've heard he's tough. Well, he's old school. And if it ain't broke, don't fix it kind of guy, you know what I mean? He doesn't actually know I'm telling you this, by the way, but, well, we had a bad weekend. A couple dozen players got sent to the infirmary for heat exhaustion. Good Lord, that's terrible. Does this happen often? Well, not always this bad, but, yeah, sure, especially in the summer. Well, are the players drinking water during practice? Well, yeah, some of them are. Coach Graves isn't that old school, but back when I was playing, and if we got thirsty, we were lucky to get a wet towel to suck on. Maybe one of them salt tablets. Coaches were worried about players getting bloated or cramping up, but I know these guys are still losing a ton of water weight, just like I used to. In fact, well, I'm not sure this part's fit for lunchtime conversation. Okay, I stand warned. Well, they're not peeing during practice, Dana. Whatever water they are drinking, I don't think it's sticking around. Shires keeps asking Douglas questions, and soon a clearer picture starts to emerge. It sure sounds like classic dehydration, but as a scientist, he knows he can't be definitive until he gets some data. Shires promises he'll bring the issue to his boss, Dr. Cade. When Cade hears about the possible dehydration issue, he wants to help. Cade is a former athlete himself. As a high school track star in Texas, he used to run a 420 mile. And as a Texan, he understands the dangers of overexertion in hot climates. So Cade grabs Shires and a handful of other research fellows from the renal medicine department, and they head to the Florida Gators training office to meet up with Coach Graves. They'll need his permission before they even try to run tests on his players or tinker with their routines. Coach Graves listens to the doctor's pitch. And he has his doubts. He is pretty old school, just as Douglas described. And like many of his fellow coaches, he's wary of science getting in the way of sports. Today, sports medicine is a $7.3 billion a year global industry. But in the 1960s, the prevailing attitude among coaches is that trainers are for healthy players. Doctors are reserved for the sick or injured. But Coach Graves also knows the doctors are responding to a real issue. During the 1965 spring preseason alone, more than 20 Gators have gone to the hospital for dehydration, cramping or even worse heat stroke If these doctors want to try and find a solution for that problem maybe it couldn hurt to let them Graves and Cade reach an agreement. The researchers can run their tests, on the condition that they limit themselves to the freshman squad. Freshmen aren't allowed to play in varsity games, so whatever the research is, it won't interfere with the Gators' regular game schedule. For a week, Cade's researchers collect blood and urine samples, both pre- and post-workout. They also collect the player's sweat during practices using watertight suits, including rubber gloves and booties, which they periodically empty into measuring containers. The scientists measure the volume of sweat as well as the level changes in the player's electrolytes, meaning salt compounds like sodium, potassium, and magnesium. After their week of testing, Cade's research team looks at the data, and it's pretty startling. Some players are losing up to 9 pounds of water weight per practice, and up to 25% of their body's sodium content. These athletes are losing massive amounts of salt and water. And this is what leads Dr. Cade and his team to make a bold move. Invent a drinkable solution to replace both. It's October 1965. A game is in progress on the Gators' home turf. Assistant Coach Douglas paces nervously on the sidelines, even though the game is supposed to be low stakes. This is the toilet bowl, a weekly scrimmage between the freshman squad and the varsity B team. No one on the field right now is even a regular starter, but the pressure is on nonetheless because today's matchup is also the first test run of Cade's new glucose and electrolyte solution which the team has been calling Cade's Cola. The varsity B team as the control group is drinking water and the freshmen coached by Douglas they're drinking the experimental beverage. Even as second stringers the varsity B team players tend to be bigger and stronger than their freshman counterparts. So most years they win the toilet bowl And sure enough, at halftime, this year's freshmen are down 13-0. But then, in the second half, when players usually start to dehydrate and cramp up, the varsity B team fades. In fact, they don't score another touchdown the entire game. Meanwhile, the freshmen, fueled by their electrolyte solution, start lighting up the field. Douglas can't believe it when the freshmen win the game. and even head coach Graves starts to think the real victory belongs to Cade's cola. But this was just the practice run. The real test will come when the varsity players test it out. The next day, the varsity team has a game that actually matters, a conference matchup against the number five-ranked LSU Tigers. The Tigers are heavy favorites, but the Gators are fired up with their secret weapon. On the sidelines are gallons of Cade's Cola, which Cade and his researchers mixed up the night before. So far, the varsity players had no part of this experiment. They just watched and laughed as the freshmen ran drills in plastic gloves. But all that's about to change. The starters gather around Dr. Cade in the cooler full of his mystery drink. Hey, Doc, what is this stuff? It's an electrolyte solution. It's got sodium, potassium, and glucose, which is the simplest form of sugar the body can break down. Basically, whatever you sweat out during the game, this is supposed to replace it. And the glucose will give you energy that your body can absorb a whole lot faster than water. So I think you'll feel stronger in the third and fourth quarters when the other team's fading. Heck, I'm sold. It's 100 degrees today. We need all the help we can get. Yeah, I'll try it too. This stuff tastes like piss. At least it's cold, though. And with that, the player dumps the drink over his own head. Unfortunately, despite Mary Cade's helpful suggestion to add lemon juice, Cade's cola still tastes more like a sweaty glove than a refreshing lemonade. But regardless, it seems to do the trick. Despite being underdogs in the matchup, the Florida Gators beat the number five ranked LSU Tigers 14 to 7. And now, everyone on the team is a believer. Now, come on, let's be honest. We don't really know how much caged drink factored into that win over LSU. Could have been strategy, adrenaline, just a lucky Saturday. But in business, perception often moves faster than proof. Early wins don't need to survive a peer-reviewed journal. They just need to be repeatable stories people want to believe. And if your product shows up alongside success, well, people will connect the dots for you. In fact, if the Gators had lost that game with LSU, well, in the words of one of Gatorade's inventors, you probably never would have heard of Gatorade again. Dr. Cade's foul-tasting lemonade. soon becomes a regular staple on the gator's sidelines, and one of his researchers christens it with a new name, Gatorade. That's A, it's spelled A-D-E, by the way, not A-I-D. The scientists don't want people interpreting the A-I-D spelling as suggesting that this is medicine, which would require extensive clinical trials. Dr. Cade's team starts pumping out vats of this stuff in the basement of the pharmacy school, and the Florida Gators go on to have a winning season. which further boosts everyone's confidence in Gatorade. But even as the winds pile up, a conflict is brewing. Right now, Gatorade is only for the Florida gators as their own secret weapon. But soon, Dr. Cade starts thinking there may be a bigger market out there for his invention. Could Gatorade be the University of Florida's best-kept secret? or an elixir to hydrate the entire world? It's fall 1966 at the University of Florida. Dr. Cade sits in the quiet, air-conditioned office of Vincent Learned, director of the school's sponsored research program. Cade doesn't like spending time in the university's administrative buildings. He'd rather be in the lab. But today, he's come here for one thing. Money. Vincent, I don't think I have to tell you how much Gatorade's helped our football team these past two seasons. In fact, I'd say it's kept dozens of boys out of the hospital for heat stroke. And they're on their way to setting a new school record even as we speak. Well, that might have a little something to do with our coach, don't you think? Plus that quarterback of ours. What an arm on that kid. But yeah, okay, all right, I take your point. Well, here's the problem. My team is exhausted. Collectively, my researchers and I have spent some 150 hours on unpaid personal time developing, producing this stuff. And now Coach Graves is ordering gallons of it for every game and every practice, all while I'm supposed to be running my department. You know, it's absurd. Surely you're not paying for supplies out of your own pockets. No, no, that's not it. We charge the football team per gallon to cover basic costs. But that doesn't cover our time. Not staying up until 2 a.m. to squeeze hundreds of lemons, that sort of thing. Well, what do you propose, Dr. Cade? Well, I propose the university develop and sell Gatorade as a commercial product. It'll help us scale up production and make things more efficient. Better yet, it'll make money for the school. You know how many other football teams would benefit from hydration science? Hey, how many basketball teams, gymnastics teams, any other athletic pursuit you can think of? How much money could we make from this stuff? I don't know. But don't you think Gators fans might take issue with us selling our secret weapon to our opponents? Now look, Gatorade isn't just about winning games. It's about saving players everywhere from the emergency room. Look, I'll tell you what. You can take your pick. This school can buy Gatorade's formula from us outright, or you could invest, and we keep developing it. Give us, say, I don't know, $10,000 so we can scale up production. Once we start selling it to other programs, the money we make will cover your costs right there. It's basically a free roll. Then we can split the profits right down the middle. What do you say? Listen, Dr. Cade, I know you're excited, but it's just not that easy. Of all the inventions this school's helped develop, only about two of every 20 actually end up succeeding commercially. And if it fails, well, guess who gets fired? Me. Denson, come on, be logical. Sorry, my mind's made up. If you and your team want to try to make some money off Gatorade, I'm not going to stop you. But the university is not in the business of investing in soft drinks. Now, look, I got another meeting coming up. You can see your way out, all right? And here we are. This is the moment when a passion project turns into a business decision. Cade and his team weren't short on belief. They were short on time, sleep, and money for all their labor. A lot of founders hit this wall without even realizing it. The product works, demand is growing, but the money side is unsustainable. Scaling isn't really about ambition. It's about survival. If your idea can't support the people behind it, something's got to change. Still, you gotta wonder if this wasn't the biggest loss in gator history. Five figures of university funds for a long-term stake in the profits of Gatorade? Sure sounds to me like the fumble of the century. Now at this point, you might be asking yourself, hold on, is Gatorade even Dr. Cade's to sell? wasn't Gatorade developed using at least some university resources? Even if the scientists did use their own unpaid time and bought their own lemons Well let put a pin in that question We come back to it later But in reality the issue of IP is rarely entirely clean Think of Facebook. Famously, Mark Zuckerberg was accused of intellectual property theft by the Winklevoss twins, who had once hired him to work on their own social network Harvard Connection, remember? That case dragged on for years, without either side being fully satisfied. The only way to really clear up ownership issues is to get the deal terms in writing. Otherwise, you may end up having to settle your differences in court. But let's get back to the action, shall we? With a definitive no from the university, Dr. Cade and his team have a choice. Try to keep up with the football team's needs as best they can. or become entrepreneurs and bring Gatorade to the wider world. You can guess which option they chose. But executing their plan takes a bit of patience and a lot of luck. First, Cade takes out a small bank loan, $500, just under $5,000 today, to help with production costs. Next, the team figures out a couple of tweaks to their original formula and design. They start buying lemon juice concentrates so they won't get cramped hands from squeezing lemons anymore. They also start experimenting with new flavors, including grape, mint, and even coffee. And instead of mixing up grape vats to keep on ice on the sidelines, they start packaging the drink in individual pint cartons obtained from the university's dairy sciences department. And by chance, it's these pints that score Gatorade its first major write-up in the press. In November 1966, a reporter from the Miami Herald spots the white cartons piled up on the Gators' sidelines. Knowing the Gators are having an incredible year, the reporter wonders if those cartons might have something to do with their success. The reporter approaches Coach Graves after the game. Uh, hey, Coach, you giving your players milk? Graves shrugs. Oh, we've been fooling around with this stuff for a while now. Then Graves lets a reporter know he's done answering questions and suggests he speak with Dr. Cade for further comment. And Cade does not disappoint. On November 30th, an article runs in the Miami Herald Sports section with the headline, Gatorade, the key to UF's success? With this one article, Gatorade becomes more than a sideline secret. The story is picked up in other outlets and becomes a talking point for their opponents. In January 1967, when Florida beats Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl, the Georgia Tech coach tells Graves, quote, We didn't have Gatorade. That made the difference. And it's exactly this winning association that will propel Gatorade to its next phase. It's March 1967. In downtown Indianapolis, Dana Shires is slowly walking into a squat concrete building. He's holding two mason jars full of sloshy liquid as he heads into the worldwide headquarters of Stokely Van Camp, a major canned food company. Shires isn't alone. Beside him is Kent Bradley, the cheerful, outgoing friend who set up this meeting with the canned food giant. Bradley knows the Gatorade inventors are looking to license their product. And through the social grapevine of Indianapolis, Bradley has met a potential buyer, Alfred Stokely, chairman of the Stokely Van Camp board. Stokely Van Camp has been around since the 1930s. They're best known for their canned pork and beans and for inventing the C-ration, which fed hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers during World War II. They're a less than obvious landing spot for an Electro-like sports drink, but the Stokely family also happens to be well-connected to the world of college sports. As dedicated boosters for the University of Tennessee, they've seen Gatorade in action, including against their own team, the Volunteers. Just knowing this is the stuff that powered the Florida Gators to an Orange Bowl victory is reason enough to hear what Shires and Bradley have to say. The sales pitch kicks off in the posh corner office of Hank Warren, Stokely's vice president and director of sales. Warren is a former Marine with impeccable posture and a twinkle in his eye that suggests he's got a sense of humor. Bradley does most of the talking, smiling widely and trying not to think about how out of place those mason jars look on Warren's big wooden desk. He describes the power of electrolytes and how they aid absorption of fluids and nutrition in the body. Most of all, he talks about the Florida Gators' charmed 1966 season and how it was all thanks to Gatorade. But then, it's time for the Stokely executives to taste what's in the jars. Warren and his top sales manager each unscrew the metal lid off a jar and take a sip. Shires and Bradley exchange glances. This moment might just tank their pitch. Thing is, even after over a year in development, Cade's team still never managed to get the flavor quite right. Mint, grape, coffee, original lemon, doesn't matter. Because the one thing they haven't been able to add is the one thing that might make it taste good. Refined sugar. Refined sugar slows the drink's absorption in the body. and fast absorption is one of Gatorade's signature features. Meanwhile, the one kind of sugar it does contain, glucose, doesn't taste as sweet as other sugars. After more than a year of tinkering, the drink itself still tastes pretty disgusting. The sales manager takes a sip and grimaces. His reaction is almost as strong as the football player who compared the taste of urine. Shires half expects the manager to dump it out on his head. But surprisingly, Warren isn't scared off by the taste. He still wants to license the formula for Gatorade. After all, he has reasons. Stokely Van Camp is a multinational food and beverage company with plenty of flavor scientists on staff and decades of experience in the sector. Surely, Stokely has the resources and know-how to improve the rotten flavor. Gatorade's biggest selling point was never its taste. It was its reputation. The story of this product is a story of science. Specialists literally designed this drink for the active athlete, and the players who used it went on to win championship bowl games. That narrative is what Stokely Van Camp would really acquire. You know, a lot of people building out a great idea just assume their product has to be perfect before it can scale. But have you ever seen Shark Tank? Oftentimes, what matters more is whether you've got a solid story. One that's clear, credible, has a certain emotional stickiness. Well, in more ways than one, Gatorade's got the right stuff. The sticky stuff. Warren makes up his mind quickly, but it takes some time to convince his colleagues and his bosses that Gatorade is worth investing in. But eventually, he wins out. Then the only thing left to settle on is price. Dr. Cade and his scientists want $1 million for the rights to the Gatorade formula. But the Stokely Van Camp executives balk at that price tag. There's still a lot unproven about Gatorade, including whether it will ever taste good. So Stokely agrees to a contingency royalty structure, giving the inventors a small percentage cut of every gallon sold. They start with five cents per gallon. Stokely also throws in a $5,000 signing bonus and a modest guaranteed payout of $25,000. The guaranteed floor is pretty low, but the Gatorade inventors agree that this is their best shot. Together, they create a trust, which allows them to divide up any future earnings. They include themselves as members of the trust, as well as a few other colleagues that helped Gatorade along its journey. Then, the inventors of Gatorade all sign on the dotted line. Cade and his team are happy. They've finally gotten some recognition for their hard work. And with the burden of production out of their hands, they can go back to focusing on kidneys. Stokely Van Camp is happy, too. They've avoided a pricey million-dollar payout for this experimental product. If Gatorade doesn't sell well, then they're only out about $30,000 and the development costs. But wait a minute, let's check that math for a second. By agreeing to a royalty structure in perpetuity, they stand to be on the hook for a lot more than they would have if they'd agreed to a $1 million deal. Try a billion dollars. Think about how many cases of Gatorade have been sold since 1967 and ask yourself, if you were a Stokely executive, would you still want to structure your deal this way? Either way, Stokely Band Camp now owns the worldwide rights to make and sell Gatorade. Now, they have to actually pull it off. It's July 1967 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Stokely Van Camp Vice President Hank Warren is here for one of the biggest sales meetings of his career. He takes a stroll through the lobby of the luxury resort hosting this conference. Brochures boast of excursions on horseback and a sprawling golf course with views of the Allegheny Mountains. But Warren won't have time for any of that. This conference brings together hundreds of food brokers who sell Stokely products to grocery chains across the country And it Warren chance to map out his grand plan for introducing Gatorade to the world Then, a call comes in to the reception desk. There's been a massive mid-air collision between a commercial jet and a private plane. 74 people are dead, including more than 20 sales reps from Stokely. Warren races to his room. He can forget the go-to-market plan. He's got to get home to the Midwest to comfort his grieving staff. This devastating tragedy is just one of many confounding setbacks plaguing Gatorade's rollout. Nothing else will compare in terms of pure loss. But even without this freak accident, the path to manufacturing and selling Gatorade at scale is an unexpectedly harrowing journey. First, well, there's the container problem. For a simple sports drink with precious few ingredients, it's surprisingly difficult to package for individual sale. Initially, Stokely tries selling the drink in metal cans. After all, canning is part of the company's core infrastructure and supply chain. Think of all those canned vegetables. Plus, cans allow for the sterilization process needed to sell a non-acidic drink like Gatorade. Soft drinks like Coke and Pepsi are naturally acidic, meaning they're pathogen-resistant and slow to spoil. not so for Gatorade. Also, salt, one of Gatorade's main ingredients, is highly corrosive. It eats through metal. This unfortunate fact was discovered by a Wall Street analyst who received samples of Gatorade in the mail. Stokely shipped him the samples, hoping the analyst would write glowingly about the product's forecast. But instead, the analyst left the drinks in the backseat of his town car overnight. Stokely ended up paying for the reupholstery. Okay, so cans won't work. Stokely then shifts to 32-ounce glass bottles. This works in supermarkets. Where glass won't work is on the sidelines of a rough-and-tumble football game, ostensibly the single most important use case for this drink. So Stokely pivots again, inventing a powdered concentrate version of the drink that teams can mix into big coolers of water. This works much better and eventually will improve efficiencies in shipping. But every new R&D pivot costs money and time. And then there's the ever-elusive problem of Gatorade's taste. To tackle this problem, Stokely Van Camp assigns a flavor chemist named June Davis. Her resume includes an impressive claim to fame, developing jello flavors for general foods. It's her job to make Gatorade taste less like medicine and more like a soft drink. After experimenting with flavors ranging from strawberry to iced tea, Davis focuses on one flavor, lemon lime. That's the one that best masks the salty aftertaste and can be improved with a little bit of artificial sweetener. A second flavor, orange, will come around eventually, but that's still a couple of years away. Despite all of the setbacks, from the ruined town car to the loss of nearly two dozen sales brokers in a tragic accident, Gatorade manages to pull through. The Wall Street analysts, including the one with the ruined upholstery, end up predicting success. Within four months of acquiring the sports drink formula, Stokely's stock price doubles, which many link directly to Gatorade. Why are analysts so bullish on Gatorade? It could be because of how quickly Gatorade makes inroads with sports organizations, from local country clubs to colleges to the pros. In mid-1967, before the product is even available to the general public, Stokely pays $25,000 a year to the National Football League for the rights to be named the league's official sports drink. This deal places Gatorade's name and logo everywhere on NFL sidelines, on water coolers, on little green paper cups. Individual football teams aren't even required to buy Gatorade. They're allowed to drink anything they want out of these branded cups. But to the TV-watching public, it looks like everyone is drinking Gatorade. In the summer of 1968, Stokely starts rolling out Gatorade to supermarkets around the U.S. By this time, the American public has spent an entire football season looking at the drinks branding on the sidelines. It already seems like the product is everywhere, even though it's just getting started. And this perception will give Gatorade a huge leg up over the competition. So far, most of the competition we've discussed in this story concerns one football team against another. But whenever a new category of product hits the market, you can be sure imitators will follow. In fact, Gatorade competitors existed even before it started appearing on the Florida sidelines in those telltale white milk cartons. Other schools had been developing their own miracle elixirs, like Nebraska's Husker Aid, Rutgers Sport Aid, and a drink invented at Florida State just two hours west of the University of Florida. Outside vendors got in on the electrolyte craze, too. One athletic supply company out of Kansas developed a product called Take Five, a so-called instant salt dextrose drink, touting the same hydration benefits as Gatorade. In another universe, maybe one in which the Florida Gators lost their bowl game, Take Five might have taken off instead. But thanks to a mix of luck, timing, and quarterback Steve Spurrier's arm, Gatorade was the one to surge ahead of the pack. It was the one to attract a buyer at Stokely Van Camp. And it was the name emblazoned on the coolers and paper cups of the NFL. It all adds up to one thing. first mover advantage. For years, Gatorade is truly the first name in sports hydration. But in 1970, a challenger emerges that won't be so easy to shake. You may have heard of it. Coca-Cola. The company's signature drink is, of course, the definition of a winning beverage, if you're going by size. By 1970, it's the largest soft drink bottler in the world, doing over $100 million in annual sales. The company owns plenty of non-Cola subsidiaries, including Minute Maid, and it's been supplying soft drinks to sporting events, including the Olympic Games, since at least the 1920s. And in 1970, Coca-Cola introduces its own take on the sports drink, Olympade, a patriotic-looking electrolyte drink with red, white, and blue packaging. Naturally, some executives at Stokely Van Camp take notice. Luckily, it quickly becomes apparent that so far, there's little to worry about. For starters, Coca-Cola completely mistimes the Olympade rollout because, well, 1970 is not an Olympics year. They also do a rather poor job marketing the product, and it fades away well before the 1972 Munich Olympics. Meanwhile, Gatorade is making millions for Stokely Van Camp. When the Kansas City Chiefs win the 1970 Super Bowl, it's Gatorade's logo that splashed all over the sidelines. Between the Super Bowl champs' endorsement of Gatorade and Coke's disastrous rollout of their challenger, the team at Stokely feels confident their product is the market leader and bound to stay that way. But Olympade was only Coke's opening salvo. The beverage giant knows it needs to get into sports drinks. So it's only a matter of time before they try again. Dominance in a category often breeds complacency. And that's something no company can afford when it's up against a competitor of Coca-Cola's size and marketing prowess. Stokely Van Camp can't rest on their laurels. They'll need to fight back with everything they've got. But Gatorade has another problem on the horizon. There's another entity besides Coke who feels galvanized by Gatorade's dominance. The University of Florida. Remember how we said that sorting out IP claims can be tricky? Well, that's about to become very relevant to Gatorade's future. The university knows this product was developed right on their campus, and they think some of those royalties belong to them. A legal dispute is brewing between Gatorade's original inventors and the university, and legal disputes are rarely good for business. As Coca-Cola circles and the University of Florida makes its claim, The real question becomes, who actually owns Gatorade's success? From Audible Originals, this is episode one of Gatorade Sweats the Competition for Business Wars. A quick note about recreations you've been hearing. In most cases, we can't know exactly what was said at the time. Those scenes are dramatizations, but they're based on research. And if you'd like to read more, we recommend First in Thirst, How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat into a Cultural Phenomenon by Darren Rovell. And The Sweat Solution from ESPN's 30 for 30. I'm your host, David Brown. Katie Clark Gray wrote this story. Voice acting by Chloe Elmore. Our senior producers are Jenny Bloom and Emily Frost. Our producer is Tristan Donovan of Yellow Ant. Karen Lowe is our producer emeritus. Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Fact-checking by Alyssa Jung Perry. Sound design by Kyle Randall. Executive producer for Audible, Jenny Lauer Beckman. Head of creative development at Audible, Kate Navin. Head of Audible Originals, North America, Marshall Louie. Chief content officer, Rachel Giazza. Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC. Sound recording, copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC. you
