The top dog of competitive hot-dog eating is back.
Joey Chestnut, the 16-time champion of Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, will return to its Coney Island competition stage this summer, a year after being sidelined by a sponsorship conflict.
"This event means the world to me. It's a cherished tradition, a celebration of American culture, and a huge part of my life," Chestnut said in his social media announcement on Monday. "I'm excited to be back on the Coney Island stage, doing what I live to do, and celebrating the Fourth of July with hot dogs in my hands!"
Chestnut has been synonymous with the July 4th event since 2007, when he began his yearslong winning streak.
The 41-year-old boasts the 10 highest totals in the event and even earned a Guinness World Record for eating 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes at the 2021 competition. It's one of 55 world records he holds in competitive eating, having conquered a wide range of delicacies from gumbo to boysenberry pie to a whole turkey.
"Joey Chestnut is the greatest eater in history. That is not empty editorializing or bloviating. That is empirical fact," says Major League Eating (MLE), the organization that oversees professional competitive eating events (frankly, hot dogs are just the tip of the iceberg).
But in a shocking twist last year, with the storied Coney Island contest less than a month away, MLE banned Chestnut from the stage.
What was the beef?
Chestnut regularly competes in "unbranded" events, such as concessions-eating contests at ballparks in the summer. But in June 2024, MLE accused Chestnut of violating their "basic hot dog exclusivity provisions" by partnering with a "rival brand."
Chestnut had signed an endorsement deal with Impossible Foods, a company that makes plant-based meat substitutes and had recently launched a marketing campaign targeting carnivorous consumers.
He said at the time that he did not have a contract with Nathan's or MLE, accusing the organizers of "looking to change the rules from past years as it relates to other partners I can work with" and depriving "the great fans of the holiday's usual joy and entertainment."
MLE maintained it would welcome Chestnut back when he was not representing a rival company, and apparently rolled back its ban shortly before the contest. But Chestnut said he wouldn't return without an apology, and went on to stage his own competition at the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas.
July 4th was ultimately a sausage split screen: Chicagoan Patrick Bertoletti put away 58 hot dogs in 10 minutes to win his first Nathan's contest, while Chestnut downed 57 hot dogs in half the time — beating a team of four soldiers, who collectively consumed 49.
Chestnut stayed busy. In September, he faced off against his longtime archrival Takeru Kobayashi — "the Godfather of Competitive Eating" — in a highly anticipated Labor Day rematch streamed on Netflix. He guzzled 83 glizzies (and buns) in 10 minutes, beating Kobayashi as well as his own record.
How did Chestnut's homecoming happen?
Chestnut acknowledged on social media that there had been "differences in interpretation," but said he and organizers were able to "find common ground."
"While I have and continue to partner with a variety of companies, including some in the plant-based space, those relationships were never a conflict with my love for hot dogs," he wrote. "To be clear: Nathan's is the only hot dog company I've ever worked with."
MLE confirmed in a statement that Chestnut will once again grace its hallowed stage. Its cofounder and emcee George Shea told NPR that "we were able to come together and I think everybody was interested in that," though declined to comment on details of the agreement.
"Major League Eating is extremely excited that Joey will be returning to the 4th of July event this year, and it literally will be the greatest sporting event in the history of sports," Shea said. "We are excited, the fans are excited and it was sort of all systems go for the 4th."
Chestnut told the Associated Press that while he never appeared in any commercials for Impossible Foods' vegan hot dogs, he "should have made that more clear with Nathan's."
With the beef behind him, Chestnut now has his eyes on the prize. He told the AP he's already started prepping for the competition.
In a 2021 Nathan's video, Chestnut he usually starts training around the end of April, a process that involves multiple practice contests under increasingly real conditions.
"A lot of it's psychological and mental," he said. "Your body tells you you're full, and being able to ignore that feeling of full, that makes it easier to train."
Shea told NPR that he's especially excited to see Chestnut face off against Bertoletti, the reigning hot dog (among other foods) champion — and underdog. He ate 58 hot dogs last year, while Chestnut usually averages over 70.
"But word on the street is that Pat has been working, upping his numbers, and that he's gonna give Joey a run for it," Shea said. "He does not want to relinquish his title."
A quick ketchup on the hot dog-eating contest
Nathan's Famous claims the hot dog eating contest was born when four immigrants gathered at its original Coney Island stand on July 4, 1916, in a stomach-churning display of patriotism. That myth has been debunked — a publicity agent confessed in 2010 that the company made it up.
Eating contests were a regular feature at July 4th celebrations for decades after the American Revolution, Jason Fagone, the author of Horsemen Of The Esophagus, told NPR in 2023. But Nathan's changed the game when it held its first recorded contest in 1972, which for many years was seen as a joke even by its largely local contestants.
In the 1990s, brothers Richard and George Shea took over the company's publicity efforts and grew the contest into a bona fide bonanza, referring to the competitors as athletes and giving them elaborate, hyperbolic introductions.
The real turning point for the contest came in 2001, when Kobayashi — who rose to fame eating 16 bowls of ramen in an hour on a TV show in his native Japan — first brought his talents to Coney Island.
Using the novel technique of snapping hot dogs in half and dunking buns in water cups, Kobayashi set a new world record of 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes — and putting the sport on the world stage.
"And then after that, everything changed because there started to be real money," Fagone said.
ESPN started broadcasting the contest live, which it still does today. It attracts competitors from around the globe, started a women's-only contest in 2011 and awards champions $10,000 each (as well as a yellow and pink mustard belt, respectively).
An estimated 40,000 people attend the event in person, while hundreds of thousands tune in to watch. Shea likens the atmosphere to "a cross between an illegal dog fight and the Super Bowl."
According to ESPN, the contest drew about one million viewers in 2022 and 2023, but felt Chestnut's absence last year with just 831,000 viewers, its lowest number in more than a decade.
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