The takeover of Nathan’s Famous by its meatpacker and distributor, Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods, was announced in January and expected to be completed in the first half of 2026. Various issues have postponed the closing to the second half of the year.

Completion of the transaction remains contingent upon meeting several conditions specified in the Merger Agreement. These include securing approval from the holders of a majority of Nathan’s outstanding stock, obtaining clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), and fulfilling other closing requirements. However, given the impact of the partial government shutdown on statutory deadlines for CFIUS’s review process, our anticipated closing timeline has shifted, and we now expect the transaction to close in the second half of 2026.

update Jun 13 The Trump Administration has criticized foreign control of the American meat industry, but they have not expressed any criticism of the Nathan’s Famous / Smithfield Foods merger. One reason for the lack of opposition to the deal might be the longtime friendship between Trump and Nathan’s Famous CEO Howard Lorber, who has hosted fundraisers for the president.

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The July 4 schedule for ESPN is now available. The main channel will observe America250 by broadcasting British tennis while the men’s Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating contest is relegated to ESPN2 and the women’s division is streaming-only. The men’s contest will be rerun on ESPN2 at 4pm Eastern and the documentary “The Good, the Bat, The Hungry” will be shown at 5pm.

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Here is the number of Nathan’s Famous hot dog qualifiers in the database since 2002 by contest year. The list does not include non hot dog competitions like the 2005 UK sausage eating contest that awarded a finals spot.

A list of all the qualifiers follows after the jump
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I have uploaded Spike TV’s MLE Chowdown: Ham N Eggs from 2008 to X. Hard boiled eggs contest | ham contest | ham results announcement. (The program got a copyright violation on youtube).

During halftime of Super Bowl XLII on February 3, 2008, Spike TV televised two Major League Eating contests that were recorded in Las Vegas in October 2007. The first competition was hard boiled eggs and featured eaters ranked outside the top 10. The undercard field: Erik Denmark, Chris Abatsas, Micah “Wing Kong” Collins, Allen “Shredder” Goldstein, Arturo Rios Jr., Eric “Steakbellie” Livingston and “El Toro” Jimenez.

The second televised competition was ham. The field was
Joey Chestnut, Pat Bertoletti, Tim “Eater X” Janus, Tim “Gravy” Brown, Rich LeFevre, Hall Hunt, Juliet Lee (RIP) and Juris Shibayama. Takeru Kobayashi withdrew due to jawthritis; he appears as a spectator at 5:55.

Even though the telecast had 863K viewers, a record for a Spike TV eating contest, Spike TV did not sponsor any more Major League Eating events. Ham N Eggs would be the last non-Nathan’s hot dog MLE competition televised on a national cable network.

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