[music] It's the other side of midnight with Frank Morano. I know, I know, I know. [music] This is the other side of midnight. I'm Frank Morano. We're just one day removed from Independence Day, the Fourth of July, and when you think of what Independence Day means, what do you think of? Obviously, I think a lot of people think of history, the flag, patriotism, America itself, fireworks, maybe a nice viewing of 1776, and of course, Frankfurter's hot dogs. Particularly, the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, which has really become, I don't think this is an exaggeration at all, one of the most watched, most anticipated, most talked about sporting events of the year. A wise man once said that they say competitive eating is the battleground upon which God and Lucifer wage war for men's souls. If you watch this contest every year, it's clear that that's the case. We have the man that popularized that very quote on the line with me, and we are in for a real treat because if PT Barnum were a better marketer, if Don King were a better promoter, if Vince McMahon was a better announcer and you somehow put them all together, they would be George Shea. If you're not familiar with George Shea, here's a typical introduction of a competitive eater that the whole world has fallen in love with every July 4th. He is from Dubuque, Iowa, and he is a man of principle. And one thing that drives him crazy is the urban myth that Elvis died sitting on a toilet, because it's just not true. And so when he heard that there was a peanut butter and banana sandwich eating contest to honor the King's birthday, he signed up and he wanted it. And then he launched his career in competitive eating. Ladies and gentlemen, 66 cupcakes, 31 hot dogs and buns, 39 dozen oysters, ranked in the parade in the world. Let me hear it for Eric Nostor! But this year's contest is not without drama. Just as many people said, you couldn't have WrestleMania without Hulk Hogan. In recent years, it feels like you can't have the Super Bowl without Tom Brady. You can't have a Terminator movie without Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some folks have compared the drama surrounding tomorrow's contest to when boxing authorities stripped Muhammad Ali of his world championship because he didn't want to be drafted. This will be the first year in almost 20 years that the contest won't feature the greatest athlete in the world today, Joey Chestnut. So what's going on? Well, we are lucky enough to turn to the top dog himself, the man who made this hot dog eating contest, what it is, the co-founder and commissioner of Major League Eating and the MC of the Nathan's famous hot dog eating contest every July 4th, the one and only George Shea. George, it's great to have you on the program. Thanks for joining me. Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it. George, so many things that I want to pick your brain on. Let me begin with this. Would you make of the Supreme Court's decision on the Chevron Doctrine? You know what? I'm going to stay away from the Supreme Court and international geopolitics and the United States presidential election. I'm just going to stay with the controversy I have. Fair enough. Okay. Before we get into the controversy this year, give folks a little bit of the history of how this contest became what it is. I think a lot of folks that are a little older remember this contest taking place, but remember it being kind of an informal kind of thing that they would just pick a few guys off the boardwalk in Coney Island and say do you want to be in a hot dog eating contest? Now, it's become a thing that people train the whole year for. Literally, it's divided into men's and women's contests. There are big prizes. It's carried on ESPN. How did the contest go from something that was pretty informal to something that's almost a larger-than-life event? Well, you know, it really has been a transformation over time. And, you know, I first went to the contest, which was very small run by Max Rosie and Morty Matt in '88 was my first year. And, you know, you're trying to find people to be in it, and there are a couple of cameras, and there's a photo in the post of the news of someone eating a hot dog, and that was it. And then Max died in '91, and I took over, and I was having a lot of fun with it and put a lot of energy into it and just sort of started doing stunts and building it up. And then it really grew in the '90s, and we started an international rivalry with Japan, which really pushed it. And then what happened is in 2001, Kobayashi came to Carol Kobayashi of Japan, and he went from 25 to 55-0, and that just blew it open. But in addition to that, he had enormous star power, and that really electrified people and helped. Then what happened was no one thought he would ever be beaten. Of course, he was beaten by Joey Chestnut three times in a row, and then Joey went on essentially a 16-year tear, and it was beaten once by Matt Stoney, who's now a YouTuber, 16 million followers, doing competitive eating. But Joey's been really essentially unbeaten, and then this year we had an issue with him. He won't be there. But during that whole period of time, you got ESPN airing it live, and the media just kept growing and growing and growing until now, we struggled to accommodate the media on the 4th of July. There are so many. One of the questions that I have asked several of the female competitive eaters is how they feel about there being two separate contests now. Most of them think it's a positive in that they get a real chance to maybe win the contest when you had guys like Joey Chestnut, Matt Stoney, and Takara Kobayashi, a lot of the female leaders really weren't able to compete, and a lot of them do have a little mixed feelings in that, at least in years past, they didn't carry the female contest on television on ESPN live. Why make the decision to separate them into men and women's contests, and is the women's contest going to be broadcast on television live this year, and then a sort of a corollary to that? How is Major League eating, handling all these issues of transgender competition and competitive sport? These are very interesting questions. I think that the thinking behind the separating the men and the women was just that, to further promote the women, give them a platform on which they could win and get attention and not compete against the men, because many of them could not beat the men, but at the same time, Mickey Sudo can eat 48 hot dogs and buns, which is right in there with the top eaters, and I think people have speculated that with Joey out this year, she was going to go to try to be in the men's and win both the pink belt and the mustard belt. I think that I would love to see the women competing with the men. They compete side by side with the men at every other contest, so we don't separate men and women on the Major League eating circuit. It's only at Nathan's, and that was done to elevate them, but I do understand when people say, "Well, I'd rather compete with the men." As far as the transgender thing goes, it's a very interesting question. We have not struggled with that yet. I think there is a good chance that if that were to happen and you had a good male eater, that could be many people would think that's an unfair advantage to that person, but we haven't run into that. I would say this as well, first of all, we don't discriminate against anybody, but we just haven't run into it, but Mickey can eat 48 hot dogs and buns, her husband, Nick can eat 48, Jeffrey Esper can eat 51, Pat Bernaletti can eat 49, and 47 for James Webb. These are the top eaters in the world other than Joey. It's not as if the women are at an enormous disadvantage, and remember, Sonia Thomas years ago used to beat the men and chicken wings. She never wanted hot dogs, but she did beat Cookie Jarvis and some of the big guys. It's a little bit more mixed up, I think, on balance. There's not much separation. Yeah, no, it's a great point. We're talking with George Shea. You can see him July 4th live as the man in the straw hat, making this hot dog eating contest theatrical and possible. There's a whole lot of behind-the-scenes logistics of this that no one sees on television. You want to check it out. You can watch it from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. It kills me that this contest is not currently broadcast on radio, but that's a discussion for another day. George, one question that I get so often when I discuss competitive eating, especially from people that don't necessarily follow it, is how do these eaters eat so much? How is it physically possible for someone to eat 48, 50, 60, 60, 60 hot dogs in 10 minutes? Well, it's very difficult and these eaters, when Mickey first tried it, she did really well. She was like in the 30 hot dog. I mean, it's just extraordinary. Some people have extraordinary capacity, but even so, and you have to, right? You're not eating 30, 40 hot dogs without just having enormous stomach capacity. But in order to get there as well, you need to do the science of it. You need to engage on that, and that includes literally, when are you breathing while you are eating? How are you managing the hot dogs, getting them into your mouth? Are you separating hot dog from bana? You're dunking bana. You're dunking them together. How are you eating them? What is one hand doing when the others, if one hand's dunking is the other, feeding them out, that kind of thing? It sounds absurd and silly, but if you're going to eat 76 hot dogs and buns, all of those things have to be in line. Joey doesn't just get up there and sort of wing it. This is a science for him, and that's why he is able to get where he is. There are other eaters who have done that. Patrick Bertoletti ate 64 hot dogs and buns, and he has this very small frame, but I'm sorry, Carmen Cincotti ate 64, and Patrick Bertoletti ate 55. A lot of these eaters have sort of figured out, "How do I do it?" And then they train for that, and then they can do it. I introduced, I mentioned Joey Chestnut as the greatest athlete in the world today. A lot of people bristle when I refer to this as a sport. I remember there was one documentary a few years ago. I think even your own wife raised some controversy about this not being a sport. What do you think? Is this something that is a sport? Oh, yeah. I definitely think it is, and it doesn't just come down to the fact that there are rules and regulations and that there's a circuit and a governability, and that there are prizes and that it's real. This is not scripted. It's all real, but beyond all of that, I think that you have these athletes, and they are athletes, and when I started, they weren't. They were not athletes. These guys and gals all are, and they're approaching it like any other sport. You might say, "Well, only football and baseball and basketball and hockey and whatever are sports," and I reject the others like the one in the Olympics where you dance around with the flag or curling. You know what I'm saying? I don't know that anyone has the right to sort of blackball a sport. You know what I'm saying? You might not like it, and you might object to it or reject it in your own, but you can't say it's not a sport. These people approach it as such, and it really just is. Now, you might not like it, but it is. A lot of folks say this is a celebration of gluttony while there are people starving in certain countries. I have fielded this criticism when I've talked about competitive eating in this contest specifically. I've given my answer to this, but I'm curious, I'm sure this is a question you've gotten many times. What do you say when people bring it up with you? Well, it is not intended to thumb the nose at food scarcity, right, and on the contrary. You know, there are a lot of mixed up issues related to this. First of all, we donate a lot. Nathan's donates a hundred thousand hot dogs a year to the food bank of New York, a major re-eating donates to the food bank. It's a great organization. I donate to them. So we try to support food organizations because that's a major, major issue, but if you look at all the food, and this sounds like someone being defensive, I don't want to be defensible about this. I don't think it's a huge rational, real issue. If you look at all of the food that we have used, not even thrown away because we don't throw away much food, it pales in comparison to any all you can eat buffet or any movie studio set or anything. Do you see what I'm saying? I do. Of course. Grocery store. They're throwing out every bruised apple. I look at it, I go, "I'll take those apples," and it's weird. There's a super abundance of food. Not everybody has access to it, but as a culture, we throw away billions of pounds of food. I suspect a month, and so that we don't intend it to be that. We go out of our way to support food charities, and there really isn't that much waste. You could say, "Well, no one would eat 50 hot dogs and hence that is a waste," but they actually do eat it, so it's not like we're just throwing away food. All right. Now, let's talk about the big beef with Joey. I'm sure over the last couple of weeks you've been asked about this every day, but a lot of people very curious about what's going on this year. More than one person has remarked to me, "They don't even want to watch the contest this year." It's clear that Joey Chestnut has meant a lot to the world of competitive eating. Some folks have compared his impact on competitive eating to Michael Jordan's to basketball, or Wayne Gretzky to hockey, or any larger-than-life figure in any given sport, kind of the comparison that many folks are making with Caitlin Clark and the WNBA, and if you listen to your introduction of Joey in a typical year. And I'm sure that Joey Chestnut has made a lot of sense to the world of the world of the world of the world, and I'm sure that Joey Chestnut has made a lot of sense to the world of the world. It's very clear that you and Major League Eating have had an interest in promoting Joey. Understandably, nobody's been able to do what he's been able to do in terms of consumption of HDB. What happened with Joey this year? What's the story as simply as you can explain it for folks that have not been following all this drama? Well, Joey has been the champion for, I think, 16 out of the last 17 years and with us for 20 years. The one exclusivity component of the agreement that you have to compete on the 4th is that you won't represent a rival hotdog. It has always been that. That's always been the case. And this year, Joey's managers came to us late in the process. We were trying to negotiate a deal, and they said, "We have signed two agreements, one with Netflix to do a rival contest of a hotdog eating contest on Labor Day, and the other with Impossible Foods. Both that time we didn't know the names, but that turns out to be both of them, Netflix and Impossible." And Impossible has a suite of plant-based meats, and one of them is hotdogs. So we said can you carve out hotdogs because that's a conflict, and the answer was no. And so that we got into an impasse, and it got into the media, and then it just blew up. And then throughout that process, we were saying, "Hey, we love Joey. He's a national hero, and he happens to just be a great guy." And we want them there. Everybody wants them there. Fans want them there. We are looking to resolve this. And ultimately what happened was, Nathan's in major league eating said, "We can feed. You can represent and endorse a rival brand. The fans want you. We want you. We think you probably want to come." So let's see if we can get a deal, a multi-year deal, and we'll carve out this conflict this year, and we couldn't get to yes. So he announced to us and on media that he was going to Fort Bliss to eat with the troops in Texas. And for me, it's a big loss not to have him at, personally, a big loss not to have him at the fourth in Coney Island. But if he's got to be somewhere, that's a great tribute to the armed forces, so we certainly support that. Now, one of the things that he said at some point was that you guys had changed the agreement, that the terms that you were asking him to compete under this year were different from previous years. Is that true? No. No. I'm not calling him a liar, I just don't know what he means. The issue I suspect, once again, it's dangerous to interpret what other people are saying thinking. I suspect what he's saying is a plant-based hotdog is not a hotdog, and hence it's not a conflict. I would not agree with that. That's my suspicion. Now in the past, there were never any plant-based hotdogs on the list. We say, I think that I don't remember what it says, but the agreement says something to effect if you won't represent a rival brand, and then we specifically list a couple of brands as an indication of specific types of brands we don't like. Never before was there a plant-based brand on there, because they're never before had been a plant-based hotdog. He might be saying, well, this was the first year of the hotdog, and it wasn't on last year, so you changed it. I can't understand exactly what he's saying. I'm guessing that, it might be, might not be, but we did not change anything. The fundamental element is you wouldn't represent a rival brand, and he did. Ten years ago, we were doing basically this interview same day, ten years ago, and I was asking you what the big deal with Kobayashi was. There was some sort of dispute between majorly eating and Kobayashi, and he stopped participating in the contest. At the time, a lot of folks said that was the greatest rivalry in all of sports. Is this dispute with Joey the same thing for laymen as what happened with Kobayashi? Is it different? Is it similar? If so, how and why? Well, as I look back on that dispute, I have a certain amount of regret. I think we could have handled that better. I think that in any of these things, it takes two to tango, right? Maybe sometimes it was one party, but two parties, if they want to get to an agreement, they can, and I think had we approached that differently back in the day, we might have been able to avoid that, but fundamentally, it was similar, right? So, in Kobayashi's case, he said, "I don't want to find any agreement with you. I want to be able to compete against you, compete against majorly eating, start a rival league, do whatever I want, go to other contests and compete against you, but I also want to be the Nathan's famous champion," and we said, "You can't do that." You know what I'm saying? You can't compete directly against all of us, all parties, and still be the champion. You can do whatever you want. We're just not going to make you the champion of the world and give you a media platform that produces 20 billion consumer impressions, right? If you want that, you can get that from the group that you're going to compete with us, right? That's my recollection of it, right? There was that was the conflict directionally. I don't remember the specifics, but generally, that was kind of the direction. In Joey's case, as I just mentioned, it was more like a direct conflict that was very consciously executed, but as I said, you know, we bent on that. You know, the fans want them there, you know, as you said, many are frustrated. You know, the issue is I did not make this choice. We did not make this choice. This was someone else's choice, and the consequences of that are the consequences of someone else's choice. We're talking with George Shea, co-founder and commissioner of Major League Eating. You could see him in the hot dog eating contest July 4th, really bringing a lot of flair. George, one of the things that more than one person has remarked to me is that the kind of person that's going to eat a vegan frankfurter is usually someone that's a vegetarian or vegan, or someone who typically would not eat a Nathan's Frank as someone that stays away from beef frank. I don't know that Nathan's makes vegan hot dogs, but what is the big deal? If he, as long as he's not promoting the brand at the Nathan's contest itself, what would be the big deal if the other 364 days a year he's out there promoting impossible foods and their vegan hot dogs while on July 4th, he's very proud to be the poster child for Nathan's. Well, you could take both sides, but Nathan's has invested in this contest over the years an extraordinary amount of money. It's an enormous platform. It's a huge publicity platform. So to win that platform as the Nathan's champion then go and I endorse another hot dog, there's a problem there. You know what I'm saying? It's a pretty simple problem. You know what I'm saying? I'm the champion and I endorse the arrival brand. Now you can say, well, it's not really a hot dog because it's a plant-based hot dog. I don't think it's technically a vegan hot dog, I think it's plant-based, but it's a hot dog. If it wasn't a hot dog, they wouldn't call it a hot dog. You know what I'm saying? It's a hot dog by definition, so it is clearly intended to be a competitor to Nathan's and by securing the endorsement of the world's greatest hot dog eater, they're proving that it is a hot dog. Why would you hire him if not? I hire Tom Brady. You know what I'm saying? It makes no sense. I think it's a specious argument to say, or specious, however you pronounce it, argument to say, it's not a hot dog and it's not a conflict. Why would they even begin to consider paying, Joey Chestnut, if it weren't a conflict? If they weren't trying to trade on the publicity that Nathan's creates, there's no way, there's no way to even consider it in a different way in my view. Some folks are thinking that this might accidentally turn into being a good thing for the contest because Joey has just been so dominant in recent years, especially without Kobayashi nipping at his heels. Do you think that this could actually make the contest a bit more competitive and a little bit less of a runaway because Joey is not in it this year? And who are the top contenders, the favorites in this year's contest? So I want him there. I just want to introduce him. You know what I mean? I want to see him win, but I want to introduce Joey and I can't do that this year. So that's a loss. But many of the people I've talked to were fans are like, oh, this is great. You know, we've got four, maybe five top eaters. I really want to see who wins. So Patrick Bertoletti of Chicago, Illinois, ranked number nine, a veteran who took a hiatus. Prior to his hiatus, he ate 55 hot dogs and buns in his most recent hot dog outing, he ate 49. And then you have Nick Wary, who has eaten 48, great eater, very focused. The husband of Mickey Sudo, Mickey Sudo herself is eating 48. Then you have James Webb, who is eating 47, but the rumor is that he can eat 55. And you have Jeffrey Esper, who has eaten 51 and he's the number two ranked eater in the world. So you might say, well, 51 to 48, you know, is not that close. It's actually super close. And really what I think is going to happen is the person who is the gamer is going to win this, right? Like, you know, Badlands has been predicting that Patrick Bertoletti, who's a veteran, who doesn't get tense. You know, he's kind of like used to it and he's just, he's just kind of chill that he's going to win with 54 55. I think that's a really reasonable perspective. I had been thinking that James Webb of Australia, who has beaten everyone, Joey included, Jeffrey included, in the last six months, six major league eating wins in the last six months, six world records, you know, 70 donuts. And you know, he's, I think, going to be very, very high and, you know, it's very hard to predict, but there's going to be a very close race and I would not be surprised if James is at, is at the top. And I noticed one of the names you didn't mention there was the gentleman that you mentioned earlier, Matt Stoney, who you indicated is now a YouTuber and is the only man to beat Joey in this contest since Joey first started winning this contest. Does Matt Stoney no longer participate? Well, you know, he has on and off, he was the champion in 2014, I think, and he ate 62. But you know, the thing about that is he actually 16 million followers on YouTube, he does these, you know, eating videos, kind of one a week kind of thing or whatever it is. I think he makes an extraordinary amount of money doing that with that many followers. And so that's really his job. You know, it's interesting had he been in shape. I think that Matt Stoney probably be the odds on favorite to win and you're, because he's in 62, but he would have had to be, he would really have to be, you can't just go, okay, two weeks before the contest. Okay, I'm going to go in. Keep it. Right. It's like training for a marathon. But he, the winner, anyone who's won the contest is welcome back. You don't have to qualify if you've won. So Michelle Lesco of Tucson, Arizona, ranked number 10 in the world, she is eaten 39. She won the year that Mickey Sudo was pregnant in 2021. And she's coming back this year. She didn't have to qualify. If Matt had wanted to come back, he could have just said, I want to spot and we would have given it to him. Wow. Oh, so even even older champions like the, the mass with monster Ed Kratci or Mike Davido or the guys that participated in this contest in the nineties, the first Japanese champion Nakajima, they could all come back without even qualifying. Yes, they could. Wow. That's wild. Lastly, George, and I appreciate you being so generous with your time on what I know is a busy 24 hours for you, the Labor Day contest that you mentioned earlier with Netflix, I could see you being kind of annoyed with that. I could see you thinking that they're trying to steal a little bit of, you know, of your, your, you know, star shine from the hot dog eating contest. I could also see you being pleased in that it's something that maybe makes more people interested in following competitive eating. Which is it, or are you, are you happy about that Netflix contest? Are you relishing the opportunity to have a new rival or is this something you're not happy about? Well, you know, I think, I think you kind of described it very well. It's kind of a mix you, it, it's, you know what, you know, it's annoying to me about this. And it's not that annoying, to be honest, no one, no one was too upset about that. I mean, it could be the greatest ratings bonanza in the world. I have no idea, but one way or another, the contest, the Nathan's famous contest is a July 4 institution is not going to be changed by Netflix copying. But you know what I find on that, generally, I think that's the attitude, it's like whatever. But what I find so interesting is you go to, you always major advertising and, and agencies and stuff like this. And what they always do, these creatives, they tell themselves the chief creative officer and all these people, and you know what they do? They copy other people. They come in and they go, I got a great idea for you. We've been, all the chief creative officers, we've been creating and ideating and we've got it. Let's copy Nathan. You know, and like, how can you call yourself chief creative officer or something if all you do is copy other people? And so, but you know, there is a level of, um, flattery that comes from them saying, you know, let's just ride that wave. But you know, there's a level of annoyance to it too. But I honestly think no one much cares about that. And you know what I mean? It'll be interesting for fans to see Kobayashi and Joey go at it. And, and you know, I don't begrudge, you know, Joey the ability that, you know, for a payday on that at all. Fair enough. All right. George Shea, if you like what you hear in the contest, you can also find him on Cameo where you could send a happy birthday greeting or give advice or a pep talk or anything at all in George Shea's unique manner of introducing things, people and places George. Thanks for taking the time. Good luck with the contest and I'll look forward to chatting again soon. Thank you so much for having me and happy fourth of July to you and to all your listeners. Thank you. Comment on any portion of our conversation, you can give me a call at 646-7200-635. That's 646-7200-635. This is the other side of midnight. I'm Frank Moreno, straight ahead. Other side of midnight. (upbeat music)
