A tradition unlike any other: Pageantry, pomp and wanton gluttony return for hot dog eating contest

Competitive eating’s prodigal son, Joey Chestnut, returns Friday for the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest.

Event organizer and host George Shea is expected to introduce the eating icon with the outrageous aplomb of an announcer ushering a classic bard on stage.

Chestnut is beyond compare. He is so much larger than life for his admirers and in his sport that Mr. Shea doesn’t even try to find a match. Instead, he refers to the eating champion as if he were a hero of Greek mythology who has arrived in New York to inspire the huddled American masses.

To the co-founder of Major League Eating, the 16-time champion is closer to a demigod than a run-of-the-mill Hall of Famer.

“He has broken reality, and all of time pours down around us now at once, simultaneous and endless, erasing cause and effect, and opening all possibilities before us,” Mr. Shea said as he introduced Chestnut two years ago. “And the ancient powers are subordinated to their own creation, and they smile at his achievement, and they say he shall live forever.”

The introduction, which noted that “the gods shine down on us still, because of him alone,” went viral on social media. That’s an average Fourth of July for Mr. Shea, though.

“We’re not just eating; we’re doing a presentation and a show,” said Mr. Shea, who dresses like a carnival barker for the festivities.

The public relations professional, who acts as the commissioner of Major League Eating and the announcer for the sport’s biggest event, thrives in front of the tens of thousands of spectators who flock to Coney Island every Independence Day.

About 1 million more viewers will watch the event live on ESPN, and millions more will catch Mr. Shea’s work on social media after the competition.

“There’s a lot of hyperbole in competitive eating,” said Crazy Legs Conti, a competitive eater who legally changed his name more than 30 years ago and competed in 16 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contests. “But to say it’s our Super Bowl, the World Series and the NBA championship rolled into one is pretty much true.”

It’s a massive stage for Mr. Shea, who studied literature in college. His education shines through during the introductions. They oscillate between the beautiful and the absurd, from silly to seemingly self-serious.

“It’s critical to the energy,” the event’s host said. “It’s as much about the pageantry and the pomp and circumstance and the whole sort of energy of it as it is about the event itself.”

His introductions of the hot dog eaters allow him to stretch his range. Every competitor — the wily underdog, the food-based stuntman or the perennial “also-ran” — gets a short piece of prose as they prepare to scarf down dozens of hot dogs and buns in a 10-minute race against time, each other and human anatomy.

Mr. Shea provides the drama and gravitas that many sporting events lack.

“They don’t take advantage of the platform that they have. People are just waiting,” he said of major championships such as the Super Bowl and NBA Finals. “If you had someone like my brother Rich, or [fellow announcer] Sam Barclay or me doing intros, the house would go crazy.”

Mr. Shea first attended the country’s biggest eating contest in 1988 and took over in 1991. In the intervening decades, he has come to perfect the art of the introduction.

“It just became more and more of an interest of mine. I think I was more interested than anyone else,” he said.

That changed.

Thousands of viewers now tune in to see how he will introduce the world’s greatest competitive eaters. Some will get absurd, out-of-the-box monologues, while others get rapid-fire recaps of their records. Some get jokes at their own expense.

To Mr. Shea, the process is an exercise in “sprezzatura,” he said, making a difficult task look effortless.

“I make it up and read it and memorize it. Then when I say it, it sounds easy,” the Columbia alumnus said. “To be honest, it takes an enormous amount of time.”

The introductions are written weeks in advance, with preparation dating back months.

The endeavor mirrors any other writing effort; Shea takes inspiration wherever it strikes. If he finds a turn of phrase or idea he thinks could work for the competition, he jots it down in a note on his phone for use later.

While reading a book on Winston Churchill, he learned of a note that described enemies as “stubble on our swords.” It was included in the ever-growing document.

“It’s a very long, long document now, all variety of a hodgepodge of junk and some beautiful stuff,” Mr. Shea said. “That’s just how I do it. I don’t know how a real writer would do it.”

Mr. Shea’s best work is reserved for Chestnut: his muse.

“In a world of nothing. Of barren hills and cracked earth and once-proud oceans drained to sand, there will still be a monument to our existence,” Mr. Shea said in a 2015 introduction in which he called Chestnut “America itself.” “Bleached by the sun, perhaps, and blunted by time, but everlasting. Because this man represents all that is eternal in the human experience.”

The announcer said the extreme introductions are part of the show.

Yet a part of Mr. Shea believes in his speeches every Independence Day.

He has to.

They wouldn’t work otherwise, he said. The best introductions strike a delicate balance between hilarity and earnestness.

“When I’m writing this, it has to be true to me. If I did not think of Joey as this epic hero, I could not write that,” Mr. Shea said. “I always try to get a different balance for different eaters.”

The introductions are largely practical, providing a cue for the eaters to head to the stage while keeping the attention of viewers in person and on television. Mr. Shea said he thinks the eaters lose track of his speech in a “firehose of sensory input.”

But Chestnut hears him.

“Really, he’s doing it for me. He’s convincing me and the other eaters that we’re not just doing something goofy,” the man known as “Jaws” told The Washington Times. “We’re doing something special.”

It’s a level of gravitas that Mr. Shea feels is missing from other sports. The WWE gets it, he said, but the NBA and NFL have lost the pageantry.

Mr. Shea’s 2016 introduction stands out. A year earlier, Chestnut lost his fiancee and the title in rapid succession. The eater had proposed on stage in 2014, but the couple broke up before tying the knot.

Mr. Shea didn’t shy away from the true story. He noted that the eater “was beaten, and he was broken, and he was alone.”

That motivated Chestnut.

“He was like, ‘There’s a time to quit and a time to keep going,’” he said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s f——— go.’”

The California native went on to win the next eight competitions.

The biggest name in competitive eating missed the sport’s flagship event last year. A squabble over Chestnut’s brand deal with Impossible Foods — a purveyor of vegan hot dogs, among other plant-based meat replacements — led to a ban by the event organizers.

The competition missed him. Last year’s Chestnut-less event drew 831,000 viewers after averaging an audience of 1 million in 2022 and 2023.

“I don’t think anyone is capable of getting to the numbers that Joey gets to. He’s a product of American-built training,” Conti said. “He’s the Larry Bird of our sport. He’s in the gym first and leaves last. But in our case, the gym is a cafeteria.”

Chestnut missed it too.

“I told people I didn’t watch it [last year], but I did,” he confessed.

Chestnut will be back in Coney Island on Friday, looking to reclaim his crown from first-time winner Patrick Bertoletti. The 16-time champion, who called the competition a “security blanket” for himself, will likely have the crowd on his side.

“He’s taken on the position of the American hero,” Mr. Shea said. “So, the greatest [introduction] is always Joey’s.”

Despite Mr. Shea’s claims, Chestnut feels like a regular guy. He enjoys eating outdoors at home and grabs a hot dog whenever he visits Costco. (“It’s the best deal around; you can’t turn it down.”) The holder of 55 world records noted that he can’t tie himself to a favorite food.

“My favorite woman is my fiancee, but I don’t have to be married to one food,” Chestnut said.

That regular guy will try to eat more than 70 hot dogs Friday as millions of people watch. To Chestnut and Mr. Shea, there’s no better way to celebrate American independence.

The festivities begin at 10:45 a.m. with the women’s competition. The men will take the stage around 12 p.m. on ESPN.