Gatorade Sweats the Competition | Searching for a Solution
2/25/202644 min
It’s 1965 and at the University of Florida, a team of kidney scientists is working hard on an electrolyte beverage solution to prevent dehydration. It’s a hit with the school’s football team, the Florida Gators, and so they name it Gatorade. But creating an innovative product only gets you so far. The team has to figure out how they’ll get their new beverage off the sidelines and into grocery stores and the hands of millions of everyday consumers. And now that they’ve created the sports-drink sector, do they have what it takes to stay on top?
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First 90 secondsDavid Brown· Host0:00
[dramatic music] It's a humid summer evening in Gainesville, Florida, in nineteen sixty-five. Thirty-seven-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.
Mary Cade0:36
How was work, Bob?
David Brown· Host0:38
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 eighty-degree day feel unbearable even before the tackling drills start. But Cade 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.