Jim Nantz is a liar. At least, he’s being untruthful when he describes the Masters as “A tradition unlike any other.” Only one tradition in sports matters, and that’s head coaches getting doused with Gatorade when they win the Super Bowl. It’s a nearly flawless ritual that could only be improved by the losing team pouring Powerade on their head skipper.
The Gatorade bath quenches all of our basic needs and desires as sports fans. It triggers the same schadenfreude we indulged in when we were kids watching other kids get slimed on Nickelodeon. More importantly, it answers burning questions like, “What would Andy Reid look like if he were wet?” We already have this information for Nick Sirianni, as he somehow always looks wet, yet also severely dehydrated.
The best part, though, is the anticipation for the reveal of this elite product placement. What will be the color of the Gatorade bath? That’s an actual wager you can make at BetMGM for this Sunday’s big game. You won’t be the only one. More bets were placed on the Gatorade bath in last year’s Super Bowl than any player props.
Before we speculate on how to play the Gatorade market in Super Bowl LVII, here are the odds from BetMGM:
Color of Gatorade Bath
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Yellow/Green +275
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Orange +300
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Blue +375
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Red/Pink +500
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Clear/Water +600
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Purple +900
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No Gatorade Poured +1400
Wet are the champions
We have relatively recent Gatorade showers to point to both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.
I’m less interested in the yellow/green Gatorade shower administered to Doug Pederson in 2018 when the Eagles won the Super Bowl, although there is something to be said for the power of superstition. What caught my eye is the Lemon Lime sugar water dumped on Sirianni a couple of weeks ago when Philly beat San Francisco to win the NFC.
For Kansas City, we’ve already seen what it looks like when they win a Super Bowl. In 2020, Reid luxuriated in an orange Gatorade bath as Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs claimed the Lombardi trophy.
An anonymous former Gatorade executive was quoted in an article published by The Athletic on Monday, stating that there are up to “three coolers with different flavors” on the sidelines and that the winning bath is “intentionally randomized.” That would make it quite a coincidence that over the last eight Super Bowls, blue Gatorade was the only color dumped when Tom Brady won, and all the other winners poured out a hue that matched their team colors.
If we believe the Chiefs will continue to store orange electrolytes in their coolers and the Eagles will do the same with Lemon Lime Gatorade, we can execute a potential Super Bowl freeroll in the following manner:
Let’s say you want to bet 100 bucks on the Gatorade bath prop. Place $46 on yellow/green at +275, $43 on orange at +300, and $11 on “no Gatorade bath” at +1400 as a hedge (this has happened twice in the last decade). If one of these three hit, your profit will be $72.50 on yellow/green, $72 on orange, and $65 on the absence of a Gatorade bath.