Coca-Cola owned drinks manufacturer, BodyArmor has set its targets on becoming the most popular brand in the sports drink market after announcing the release of their latest, innovative product.

BodyArmor Zero Sugar has been labelled as the biggest product they’ve ever launched across their 12-year history.

Throughout the brand’s history, BodyArmor has had a long-standing rivalry with Gatorade as two of the biggest competitors in the sports drink market.

Gatorade has consistently held onto the top spot in recent years though and can be seen on the sidelines and benches of almost all major sports teams from the NFL down to junior level basketball.

However, the release of BodyArmor Zero Sugar is the latest significant stride taken by the company in its efforts to overtake Gatorade and claim the top spot. Timing could not be better either as BioSteel went through a difficult bankruptcy process after investing a tremendous amount of money into penetrating the hockey world.

The product sets itself apart from other products via its shortened list of ingredients, as it doesn’t contain any artificial sweeteners, flavours or dyes.

The all-new healthy alternative could be the next big thing as far as sports drinks are concerned.

BodyArmor’s Zero Sugar, low calorie and zero artificial ingredients come in four flavours; fruit punch, lemon lime, orange and cherry lime and three sizes; 16 oz, 20oz and 28 oz.

BodyArmor designed the product to answer a lot of the problems faced by customers in the current market as many other products with zero sugar content have a high volume of artificial ingredients.

The product isn’t just aimed at a sports-specific audience too, as BodyArmor have stated their intentions of luring in new customers with the lucrative health benefits the beverage can offer.

The product will be especially appealing to parents as it presents itself as an appealing soda-like product which will suit children’s desires yet doesn’t contain any harmful ingredients.

While the broad appeal of BodyArmor’s new product to a wider and unexplored audience comes at the expense of Gatorade and other rival companies, there is a lot of ground to make up before BodyArmor can claim top spot.

Market research company Euromonitor published a report which stated that BodyArmor held 12% of the US sports drink 2023 market share while Gatorade held approximately 64%.

Even Powerade held more share than BodyArmor, with a boastful 15% to their name in 2023.

The sports drink market is a fruitful one too, Euromonitor predicted in their report that the market could grow from its current $13b worth to $17b by 2027.

For example, parents who struggle with restricting their children to healthy drink options can turn to BodyArmor for the solution as the drink presents itself as a juice but doesn’t contain any of the harmful ingredients which other juices and sports drinks do.

The market has been undergoing major changes as of late though, with the drastic rise of Prime, which grew in infamy thanks to its founders’ popularity on social media, Logan Paul and KSI.

Prime announced an income of over $1b in 2023 which massively offset the expectations and trends of the sports drinks market.

BodyArmor and Powerade, both of which are owned by Coca-Cola, also underwent drastic changes in 2023 after a slip in profits at the start of the year.

BodyArmor started selling in Canada as part of its first international expansion, while Powerade dropped their product price as they both made considerable efforts to overthrow Gatorade.

While Gatorade still has a stronghold over the sports drinks market, the new BodyArmor product could be a catalyst into a massive change in the landscape of the market.