The Fourth of July has become synonymous with freedom, fireworks and being flummoxed by dozens of hot dogs that Joey Chestnut consumed that day.
On Tuesday, Chestnut will attempt to capture his eighth consecutive Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest. It would be his 16th victory since 2007 when he unseated six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi.
First, consider Chestnut’s run. Since his two-dog loss in 2015 to Matt Stonie, he’s won convincingly, including a 33-dog margin in 2020. The following year, he ate one more hot dog and set the current record of 76 in the allotted 10 minutes.
Yes, that’s some crazy math. We’ll do some more for you below.
The most hot dogs eaten in the Nathan’s Famous contest
Who is competing against Joey Chestnut this year
As in years past, Chestnut will be up against 15 other competitors, but this year’s competition will have a little more international flavor. Five of the men in Tuesday’s contest reside outside the U.S. and rank among Major League Eating’s top 25.
The event televised by ESPN offers $40,000 in prize money. The women’s competition starts Tuesday at 11 a.m. ET, and the men’s side starts at 12:30 p.m. ET.
How many hot dogs do they prepare for the Nathan’s Famous contest?
The Nathan’s hot dog crew prepares 1,000 hot dogs for the men’s contest. That works out to about 62 hot dogs for each of the 16 competitors. It’s rare for even the second-place finisher to top 60 hot dogs. They cook another 325 for the 16 competitors in the women’s contest.
According to Nathan’s Famous, that’s a fraction of the 10,000 Nathan’s sells at its flagship store on Coney Island each July Fourth, or the 100,000 they give to the New York City food bank.
Putting Joey Chestnut’s hot dog eating in perspective
Some have half-jokingly called Chestnut, 39, the greatest athlete on the planet because of his training regimen and his dominance in competitive food eating in recent years. The following stats make a decent case for considering him in those terms.
The object is pretty basic: Eat as many hot dogs as you can in 10 minutes. The math, though, is a little more difficult and inexact.
Since 2016, he’s eaten an average of 71.6 hot dogs in the 10-minute contest – a little more than the average American eats in an entire year (70), according to the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council.
That average would be higher had last year’s contest not been interrupted by an animal rights protestor who rushed the stage during the competition. Chestnut briefly put the protestor in chokehold before he went on to win the competition.
How much weight Joey Chestnut gains during the competition
Continuing with the sports theme, let’s chew on how the pounds of hot dogs he eats compares to actual sporting equipment. To say all the hot dogs he eats must feel like a bowling ball in his stomach, would actually understate it. Chestnut once told reporters he gained about 24 pounds after one of his biggest performances.
How much hot dog consumption times have changed
In the last couple of decades, Kobayashi and Chestnut have transformed the Fourth of July tradition from one where the Average Joe to might consider stepping on Nathan’s Famous stage to one that Chestnut has parlayed into a million-dollar career as a competitive eater.
As much as we marvel (or get nauseous) about Chestnut’s exploits, Kobayashi ushered in a new era of hot dog eating on Coney Island.
During his reign, Kobayashi used his so-called Solomon Method where he breaks hot dogs in half and chases it with a crushed bun. In 2001, his methods cut in half how fast anyone had ever eaten a hot dog in the contest. Chestnut has since cut that record in half.
