J. Robert Cade, the University of Florida researcher who brought home a windfall to Gainesville by inventing the sports drink Gatorade, died today at the age of 80, the Associated Press reported.
Th invention, originally designed by Mr. Cade and other researchers to help the university’s football team, the Gators, started the vast sports-drink industry and has been one of the most lucrative technology-transfer products in higher-education history. Despite bouts of litigation, the drink has earned the university more than $150-million in royalties since 1973, the AP reported.
Mr. Cade said he never imagined in 1965 that the drink would develop a consumer market. “The financial success of this stuff really surprised us,” he said. —Andrew Mytelka
