How the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest Grew in the ‘90s to Become ESPN-Worthy
Plus Hypercolor shirts, Boy Meets World, Carlton teaches breakdancing, and more
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved, forgot, or never knew existed
July 1st, 2022 • Issue 106
How the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest Grew in the ‘90s to Become ESPN-Worthy
On July 4th, 1991, George Shea — future founder of Major League Eating — ran the then-small Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest.
This Monday, July 4th, the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest returns to its signature location on Coney Island for the first time since 2019. The contest still went on during the two pandemic years. But — it went on without a crowd in 2020 and in a more controlled environment (in 2021).
This year, the contest is back in full force. Fuller force, in fact. ESPN will televise the contest for the 19th consecutive year. (On ESPNNews live, then replayed on ESPN main periodically during the day.) A massive live crowd will attend the multi-hour event. Respected SportsCenter anchor John Anderson will debut as the play-by-play announcer.
The Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest wasn’t always a spectacle on this level.
Not even close.
And we can trace its rise to July 4th, 1991. Because that was the first time George Shea ran the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.
Shea, in his mid 20s at the time, was working at his first job post-college, at a small PR firm in New York. The firm had the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs account.
At that time, the event wasn’t much. It was a one-day, low-level PR play for Nathan’s. Shea told Time it had just a few dozen spectators, one or two cameras, and a slate of amateur eaters. There were 20 competitors in 1991. The winner was a 270-pound Queens native who ate 21 hot dogs and buns in the allotted 12 minutes — a new record at the time.
Still, in spite of the small scale, George, and his brother Richard, saw big potential in the hot dog contest (and eating contests in general). Gastronomical contests weren’t new — they’ve been around for centuries. But no one in the past thought to try to turn them from county fair events and local restaurant publicity stunts into national and international news. Into phenomenons. And, yes, into sports.
So they began their quest to transform the contest from a one-day minor, local publicity stunt into a year-long, mega, international publicity bonanza. Throughout the ‘90s — especially after the Sheas started their own PR firm and took the Nathan’s account with them — they scaled the hot dog contest into something more.
They held qualifying events around the country. They recognized the popularity growth of competitive eating in Japan and began to recruit Japanese eaters. (It helped that the Japanese eaters usually clocked in around 120 pounds or less, creating not just international rivalries but eye-catching size juxtapositions against the girthy American competitors.)
And most of all, the Shea brothers saw competitive eating as, potentially, America’s first ironic sport. They treated the event as a dead serious sport. The pageantry rivaled pro wrestling, but the competition was not predetermined. In every interview they promoted the competitors as “athletes.”
George’s work as master-of-ceremonies included the use of hyperbolic dramatic language. It was ironic but not played for irony. His tongue was never in his cheek as he made outlandish declarations. As the Japan-U.S. eating rivalry heated up, at one point he yelled, “This will be the greatest moment in American sports” if a U.S. competitor could reclaim the championship. The brothers created a lexicon around the sport as well — the signature is when they call a competitor vomiting a “reversal of fortune.”
In 1997, the Sheas founded the International Federation of Competitive Eating (now called Major League Eating) and began running other eating contests for other types of foods around the world. Buffalo wings. Sushi. Jars of mayo. They kept official records and judged the contests right down the middle. Competitive eating was now a regulated, well, sport for the first time in its history.
With the Sheas’ publicity onslaught and marketing savvy, the contest grew steadily through the ‘90s.
Then, exactly one decade after George’s first contest, the July 4th, 2001, event finally found created a popularity explosion. A new competitor from Japan, Takeru Kobayashi, ate 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes at the 2001 Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. That doubled the previous world record.
Competitive eating just found its Michael Jordan. Must-see stars have, and always will, grow sports (and pseudo, ironic sports).
Kobayashi introduced a new technique for speed eating at the ‘01 contest. He’d break the hot dogs in half, mow the halves simultaneously as if his mouth were a wood chipper, then soak the bun in water and swallow it. To get it down his gullet, he’d shake his body — dubbed the “Kobayashi wiggle” by the branding-focused George Shea.
Kobayashi’s feat was perfectly timed as it coincided with the rapid growth of the internet. The feat went viral (at least the 2001 equivalent of viral). And the International Federation of Competitive Eating had the infrastructure in place to capitalize.
In the early 2000s, as ESPN started to seek out trendy almost-sports (poker, spelling bees, and such) to fill their networks, the rising popularity of the July 4th eating contest made it a natural fit. ESPN first aired the contest in 2003. They’ve held the contract ever since, with current rights going through 2024.
Behind Kobayashi, ESPN, and the Sheas, the hot dog contest became a bona fide national talking point every year on Independence Day.
Kobayashi was unrivaled until American Joey Chestnut came along a few years later, finally defeating him in 2007. Their rivalry helped increase the popularity of the contest once again. In 2014, the ESPN2 telecast drew 2.8 million viewers — making it the fifth-most watched program on the network all year. It beat out dozens of college football, MLB, and World Cup games and matches.
So that brings us to now. The growth has stopped and competitive eating is likely now at its water level. The days of the Kobayashi-Chestnut rivalry are over. (Kobayashi has not competed since 2009.) Chestnut has won the contest 14 of the last 15 years. Like MLB, WWE, UFC, and boxing, the hot dog contest has leveled off and is starting to decline with no new marquee stars captivating the modern audience.
In a world with so much more noise and a daily onslaught of more insanity than anyone can inventory or process, it’s harder for competitive eating to stand out or grow. The eating feats are grotesque and have a trainwreck quality to draw you in momentarily — but have not spawned a wave of amateur eating contests. They haven’t inspired a whole new generation to try to get on ESPN on July 4th.
One reason: The competitive eaters in this got too good and set the bar too high. Back when the record was around 20 hot dogs in 12 minutes, that seemed attainable. At last year’s contest, Joey Chestnut ate 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes. No one can do that nor come close.
Compare that to the poker boom of 2003. The spark of the poker boom was a dyed-in-the-wool amateur winning millions at the World Series of Poker. Everyone believed it could be them. While poker hasn’t sustained its early 2000s popularity, its baseline popularity and participation remains higher now. Competitive eating hasn’t seen that boom.
That’s the inevitable fate of an ironic sport in a post-irony world.
Still, if this is competitive eating’s water level, it’s one hell of a water level — and one that would’ve been unthinkable by everyone outside of the Shea brothers on July 4th, 1991.
If nothing else, the rise of the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest deserves an entry in the PR hall of fame. How two brothers saw potential in a small-time hot dog eating event and turned it into an annual July 4th spectacle with a two-decade ESPN contract and entire ecosystem of related contests is masterful work.
The contest may not grow larger than it was in the past, but it’s also not headed for a total reversal of fortune.
Other momentous moments from this week in the ‘80s and ‘90s
July 1st
1979 - The Sony Walkman debuted.
1980 - O Canada became the Canadian national anthem.
1982 - Cal Ripken began his record-breaking consecutive games streak.
1985 - A&E separated from Nickelodeon as Nick-at-Night began.
1987 - Kid Icarus was released for the NES.
1988 - The first issue of Nintendo Power magazine was released.
1989 - Milli Vanilli’s single Baby Don’t Forget My Number hit number one.
1992 - A League of Their Own hit theaters.
1994 - Little Big League hit theaters.
1998 - Armageddon hit theaters.
July 2nd
1980 - Airplane! hit theaters.
1988 - Michael Jackson became the first artist with five number one singles from the same album when Dirty Diana hit number one.
1991 - Boyz n the Hood hit theaters.
1991 - Axl Rose started a riot when he jumped off stage at a concert in St. Louis to attack a fan.
1993 - Pauly Shore's Son-in-Law hit theaters.
1995 - Bill Gates was named the richest person in the world for the first time
1997 - Men in Black hit theaters.
July 3rd
1985 - Back to the Future hit theaters.
1987 - Adventures in Babysitting hit theaters.
1989 - The New Kids on the Block single Hangin’ Tough was released.
1991 - Terminator 2: Judgment Day hit theaters.
1996 - Independence Day hit theaters.
1999 - Infamous video game star Billy Mitchell achieved the first perfect score ever on Pac-Man.
July 4th
1982 - Ozzy Osbourne married his manager, Sharon Arden.
1984 - Two very different but memorable movies, Big Trouble in Little China and The Great Mouse Detective, hit theaters.
1992 - Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
1993 - Pete Sampras won Wimbledon for the first time.
1995 - Deep Blue Something's single Breakfast at Tiffany's was released.
1996 - Hotmail debuted.
July 5th
1989 - Seinfeld premiered on NBC.
1989 - Weekend at Bernie’s was released.
1990 - Blossom premiered on NBC.
1991 - The Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins were officially approved as MLB expansion teams.
1994 - Hootie & the Blowfish's album Cracked Rear View was released.
1994 - Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.
1996 - Dolly the Sheep was born.
July 6th
1985 - Phil Collins’s single Sussudio was released.
1990 - Die Hard 2 and Jetsons: The Movie hit theaters.
1991 - Marc Cohn's only hit, Walking in Memphis, peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
1994 - Forrest Gump hit theaters.
1995 - Alanis Morissette’s single You Oughta Know was released.
July 7th
1981 - Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.
1984 - Prince’s single When Doves Cry hit number one.
1989 - Lethal Weapon 2 hit theaters.
1994 - The mp3 format, then called I3enc, was released.
1998 - Lauryn Hill's single Doo Wop (That Thing) was released.
5 ‘80s and ‘90s trivia facts
Stanley Kubrick’s initial pick for the lead male role in Eyes Wide Shut was Steve Martin.
Eyes Wide Shut as a spiritual sequel to The Jerk would’ve been a different — and inarguably better — movie. Steve Martin at the orgy asking “Why does he hate these cans?” and gesturing toward an ample-bosomed woman. Anyway, you get the bit.
The idea of sports teams growing “playoff beards” began in the ‘80s.
The New York Islanders players all stopped shaving during the team’s run to four consecutive Stanley Cups from 1980 through 1983.
The ‘80s saw the first artist ever win all four “major” Grammy awards in one night: Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist.
It was Christopher Cross in 1981. The two song-related awards went to Sailing… then later in 1981 he’d win the Oscar and Golden Globe for Arthur’s Theme. Christopher Cross was the king of 1981.
He’d remain the only person to win the Grammy big four in a single night until Billie Eilish a few years back.
Vanilla Sky might be the fastest ‘90s reboot.
Vanilla Sky, which came out in 2001, was a reboot of a Spanish language film called Open Your Eyes from 1997. Penelope Cruz played the same character in both films.
WiFi doesn’t stand for “wireless fidelity” — its just made-up branding.
In the late ‘90s, the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance hired a branding firm to come up with a name for their new technology. The firm, which had previously created the names for Compaq and Prozac, gave a list of 10 options.
The WECA liked Wi-Fi the best but, out of concern it would confuse people, adopted the slogan “the standard for wireless fidelity” for a year. They now say they regret that decision and wish they hadn’t tried to backronym the whole thing.
Everything old is new again
A look at the reboots, revivals, throwbacks, retro insights, and nostalgia in the news
The first episodes of Pod Meets World are out. Following the trend of cast rewatch podcasts, Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong, and Will Friedle talk about old episodes of Boy Meets World.
Amazon Freevee is creating a Who’s the Boss? sequel series starring Alyssa Milano and Tony Danza.
The teaser trailer is out for Hocus Pocus 2, which comes to Disney+ on September 30th.
Here are some details on the Quantum Leap reboot, which will debut on NBC on September 19th.
One of the creators of Friends made a $4 million donation to Brandeis University’s African and African-American studies department to atone for the lack of diversity on the sitcom.
Beck says he wishes he’d given Weird Al permission for a Loser parody. Beck says, “It was going to be called Schmoozer… which I regret denying him permission to do.”
Here’s a Hot Take from a writer at Collider who says Sid from Toy Story was not a villain, just a regular (albeit annoying) kid.
Recommendations of the week
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you loved
Here’s an investigation — from no less than the Smithsonian — on the rise and fall of Hypercolor t-shirts.
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you forgot
This was a short-lived viral phenomenon of the late ‘90s. In 1998, the Bureau for At-Risk Youth distributed pencils in schools embossed with the slogan “TOO COOL TO DO DRUGS.” The pencils were recalled after kids sharpened them… leaving the pencils saying, “Do drugs.”
The ‘80s & ‘90s pop culture you never knew existed
Two minutes well spent: This 1985 commercial featured a young Alfonso Ribeiro hawking a breakdance instructional book.
Have a great week!
-Sam