AUSTIN, Texas — Gatorade does much more than push brightly colored sports drinks, as Travis Kelce can proudly attest.
The Kansas City Chiefs tight end spent last season using Gatorade’s Hydration Customization Platform, which features a smart cap bottle that tracks real-time fluid intake data and recommends how much an athlete should or should not drink to replenish lost fluids. That’s especially important in the Midwest, where training-camp temperatures can soar well above 100 degrees, putting football players such as Kelce in danger of dehydration.
So it’s probably no accident that Kelce, after using Gatorade’s new system, posted his first Pro Bowl season, then signed a five-year, $46 million contract extension reflecting his status as one of the NFL’s best tight ends.
“It’s awesome, man. It makes guys want to be a part of it,” Kelce told NESN.com of his Chiefs teammates’ reaction to the Gatorade product. “And they see, especially with a guy who’s had success, like I’ve been fortunate to have, they see what I do throughout the week, what I do throughout practice, and they want those advantages — this being one of them.”
Kelce’s comments came last weekend at South by Southwest, where Gatorade announced it will fund four ground-breaking projects that will help the iconic sports brand fuel athletes in different ways. Among the four partners were:
— CoreSyte, which is developing a digital sweat patch that can track athletes’ unique sweat profile and help them stay hydrated.
— Facebook, which is rolling out Spark, a mobile playbook that provides workout information and inspires athletes through various formats.
— Spotify, which will curate and personalize playlists that better fit athletes’ training regimens, including having music match biorhythms.
— Twitter, which along with Gnip will create #FuelAlerts, a tool that identifies competitive athletes based on their profiles and tweets, then delivers information and training recommendations.
Elena Della Donne, the 2015 WNBA MVP, was in awe of everything she saw and has a new mindset through her affiliation with Gatorade.
“I just thought, like, get the most knowledgeable strength coach I can find, and that’s all you need,” the Chicago Sky guard/forward said, “but now there’s so much technology you can dive into to enchance your performance.”
Della Donne admitted she needs work on her recovery technique, so she was struck by Spotify’s music playlists that cue athletes when they should take a break and when they’re ready to kick back into gear.
“Sometimes it gets boring and you don’t feel like doing it, but if I have good music, it makes it an enjoyable experience,” Della Donne said. “… And we all know that when a good song comes on, you feel like you’re going faster, like they’re proving that, so that’s enhancing your performance. If they can get the right beats to the time you’re headed up a hill or whatnot, that can be really awesome.”
As a football coach, Duke’s David Cutcliffe brings a different perspective to the technology, which allows him to better educate, track and protect his players. It also could keep his Blue Devils competitive in an ultracompetitive college football landscape, as he can use social media to track the training habits and commitment of potential recruits.
“We call them winning edges,” Cutcliffe said, “and we’re hunting them everywhere.”
Cutcliffe mentored Peyton Manning while at Tennessee and called the just-retired quarterback, who used Gatorade throughout his career, “a great study” in how knowledge and preparation can help.
“In that 22-year span (at Tennessee and in the NFL), think of the things he has seen change,” Cutcliffe said. “People don’t realize how injured he really was prior to the four years with the (Denver) Broncos. Obviously, science and technology led him to perhaps the best four years a quarterback could have. He’s a great example of young athletes to utilizing this technology, using these opportunities to learn and to grow.”
Thumbnail photo courtesy of Gatorade
