Whether or not you like sports, the industry has created products that are right under your nose.
Coming up roses,
The Last Night’s Game Team
1. The age-old question of “why aren’t my football players peeing during games” resulted in the development of Gatorade. In the summer of 1965, a University of Florida football coach sat down with a team of physicians to understand why the heat affected his players. The team of doctors soon determined that the Gators players were losing fluids and electrolytes from sweating, and they weren’t being replaced by water. They created Gatorade, and it powered the team to reach their first-ever Orange Bowl appearance the following season. Word soon spread about this magical drink, and the rest is history. The first “Gatorade Shower” took place after Super Bowl 21 on January 25, 1987, when the famed drink was dumped over the winning coach’s head. The brand wasn’t without controversy. Its ad featured in Playboy Magazine certainly turned some heads. WELL, THAT’S SPORTY
2. Many inspirational quotes tell you to look through your windshield, not your rearview mirror, but those authors were clearly not race car drivers. The mirror that we take for granted in our cars every day was a product of Indy Car racing. Instead of having a riding mechanic (aka a spotter) sit behind him in the car in the 1911 Indy 500, driver Ray Harroun chose to mount a mirror above his dashboard to see what was going on behind him. (Spoiler alert: the aerodynamic advantages of being a one-person vs. a two-person car led him to the win). Rearview mirrors began to be standard equipment in consumer cars in the 1970s. AND HERE WE THOUGHT IT WAS FOR CHECKING FOR FOOD IN OUR TEETH
3. While athleisure is a relatively new fashion trend, Lululemon entered the scene in 1998 with the first yoga pant. The quarantine workday pant that we all love started as a high-end alternative to the available cotton leggings. The Luon fabric made of nylon and Lycra—synthetic elastic fibers morphed into a culture-shifting phenomenon, leaving pants, including jeans, scrambling. Lululemon was not without controversies, including a mouthy founder and the costly $67M mistake of see-through pants disaster. NAMASTE (WORKING IN MY YOGA PANTS)
4. Irvin Johnson, not to be confused with Ervin Johnson, aka Magic Johnson, was a bodybuilder and a scientist. In the early 1950s, he developed the first protein powder. His dissolvable protein, “Johnson’s Hi-Protein Food,” was a milk and egg-based concoction. Johnson changed his name to ‘Rheo Blair’ after a spiritualist told him he’d have more luck if his name contained more ‘R’s. Well, we guess it worked as Blair/Johnson started a $4.72B U.S. Market (2020) for protein powders. GOOD TO THE LAST DROP
5. If you’ve ever cruised down the street on your bike with your brilliant brain strapped into a helmet, you can thank football players. Lafayette player George Barclay commissioned the first known helmet. His teammates were growing out their hair for extra padding, but he asked a harnessmaker to create a head strap with earmuffs made of padded leather. The first sign of a football helmet as we know it was created in 1893 by U.S. Naval Academy player Joseph Reeve. After being kicked in the head too many times, he put together a moleskin hat with earflaps to prevent further injury. Paratroopers later used his invention during World War I. THAT’S USING YOUR NOGGIN
Honorable mention: One product, nutrition bars, you would assume started with sports but low and behold, the nutrition bar as we know it was formulated by NASA. OUTTA THIS WORLD
