Bloomberg has a column about the hot dog eating contest held at the MustardFest in Springfield, Ohio on September 21. The majority of the piece discusses Haitian immigrants in Springfield. Joey Chestnut made a personal appearance at the event, but did not participate in the competition that was won by Jack Legath.
Yahoo! of Japan has an article about Takeru Kobayashi's plans to start a hot dog eating contest in Japan and start his own brand of frankfurters. Kobayashi retired from competitive eating after his "Unfinished Beef" showdown with Joey Chestnut in September. (via Super News Chan)
Emmy DeLuca won the first prize of two Baltimore Ravens tickets in Saturday's street corn eating contest at Banditos Tacos & Tequila in Nottingham, MD.
The Northwestern University student newspaper has a review of the play "Dogs" that premiered Friday at the Red Theater in Chicago. Most of the characters are competitors in a women's hot dog eating contest.
Geoff Esper, Pat Bertoletti, James Webb, Miki Sudo, Nick Wehry and Derek Hendrickson are expected to compete in the NORMS Las Vegas: Hotcake Eating Championship on November 9.
The play "Dogs", set at a women's hot dog eating contest, premiered last night at the Red Theater in Chicago. It is scheduled to run until November 24.
Mosaic Pizza in Brisbane, QLD will hold a pizza eating contest on Sunday awarding $500 to the winner, $250 to the runner up.
Philly Voice has a review of the new documentary "No One Died: The Wing Bowl Story", which debuted last week at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
A 2013 episode of "Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy" in which Larry MCs a Quadruple Bypass Burger eating contest at the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas will be rerun Saturday on The Nest network at 4pm Eastern. Miki Sudo was one of the competitors.
Scott Eats ate 25 donuts in 5 minutes to win the first prize of $1,000 at the Donut Fun Run in Alameda, CA on October 19.
CapeCon will hold a pizza eating contest in Cape Girardeau, MO on November 3 awarding $200 to the winner.

Joey Chestnut turned down “Beetlejuice 2” cameo

ScreenRant.com has a post about director Tim Burton’s request for Joey Chestnut to have a cameo role in Beetlejuice 2. Chestnut turned down the offer to focus on training for a contest, most likely Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating contest in 2023.

During Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice 2 commentary feature, the director speaks about the creative nature of developing the latest batch of dead people seen in the afterlife. Among the group is a man who died during a hot dog-eating contest, one of the first afterlife characters Burton created, and someone Betelgeuse is sitting next to while in the waiting room in the sequel. Burton’s Beetlejuice 2 commentary reveals he actually wanted famous hot dog contest eater Joey Chestnut to play the afterlife character, but the competitor was too busy training for an upcoming event.

Burton shared that he was inspired by Chestnut’s record-breaking events when creating afterlife characters, so he decided to add someone who died as a result of eating too many hot dogs. When Beetlejuice 2 started filming, Chestnut would’ve been prepping to compete in the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest held every Fourth of July.

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Carlos Rodon is the New York Yankees starting pitcher for tonight's World Series game versus the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2014 after being drafted by the Chicago White Sox, he discussed his competitive eating fandom in an episode of the Cespedes Family Barbecast podcast.
Adam Richman reported that his production van was broken into and many items were stolen at a M1 truck stop in Barnet, England while traveling between London and Birmingham. The former host of "Man v Food" was recording the second season of "Adam Richman Eats Britain".
Daily Mail has an article about the Fat Shack 5K challenge that will award $3000/$1500/$500 in Colorado on January 25. Entrants will need to qualify at a Fat Schack on November 9 by eating a Fat Shack Sandwich, a classic double cheeseburger, a side of French fries, 12 Mac N Cheese Bites and 5 Deep Fried Oreos in under 15 minutes. (List of qualfier sites).
PR News Online has an interview with Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest co-founder Mortimer Matz, who turned 100 in July.
The trailer for "No One Died: The Wing Bowl Story" can be viewed online and includes clips of Jason Kelce, Joey Chestnut and Molly Schuyler. On Pattison has an article about last night's premier of the documentary at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
Bloody Elbow has a post about Adam "Beard Meats Food" Moran's recent video of his attempt to set a chicken wing record at a restaurant in Liverpool while the previous holder, MMA Fighter Paddy Pimblett, watched.
Dan Kennedy ate 26 4 ounce meatballs in 3 minutes to win first prize of $1000 at the Emporio meatball eating contest at the StrEAT Festival in Pittsburgh Sunday,

NJArts on “No One Died”

NJ Arts has an article about the new documentary, “No One Died: The Wing Bowl Story” which includes an interview with contest co-founder Angelo Cataldi. He discusses the medical personnel (or lack thereof) at the event:

Which was a good thing because, until 2007, the only medical personnel at Wing Bowl was Dr. St. George Hunt, a local veterinarian. “He couldn’t Heimlich anyone,” says Cataldi. “Basically, he neutered cats. I ended up with two of them.”

He laughs. “It was a joke.”

Yes, a big ha-ha, until Ice Cream Man showed up. “A guy came in for an eating stunt. He wanted to eat two gallons of ice cream, and we thought that was cool,” says Cataldi. “So, the guy ate the first gallon of ice cream fine. He was feeling good.”

But a few spoonfuls into the second gallon, his lips started turning blue. “By now, the guy is shivering and he’s moving slower. We ended up calling 911. He was in some physical jeopardy at one point. And that was the day we were told all eating stunts had to be approved by the legal department and that there had to be doctors on duty at the event — things we should have been doing all along.”

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Joey Chestnut faced off against two Indiana University students in a corn eating contest televised on Big Noon Kickoff before today's game against the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Banditos in Whitemarsh, MD will hold a street corn eating contest on November 2 awarding 2 Baltimore Ravens end zone tickets and a championship belt.
A corn eating contest awarding $1000 to the winner will be held before the October 26 University of Iowa football game in Iowa City, IA. The competition will raise money for the UI Stead Family Children's Hospital.

No One Died: The Wing Bowl Story to debut October 22

“No One Died: The Wing Bowl Story” will debut at the Philadelphia Film Festival on October 22. Another screening will take place on October 26. Directory Pat Taggart and producer Frank Petka will hold a Q & A session following the screening. The synposis:

A hilariously captivating retelling of Philadelphia’s infamous Wing Bowl, spiced with colorful commentary from iconic eaters, organizers, and celebrities, as they recount the event’s wild journey from humble beginnings to an unbelievable spectacle. Featuring legendary tales of eaters like the notorious Wing Bowl villain “Damaging Doug” with his larger-than-life aura, and the shocking moment when Matt “Sloth” Dutton delivered the most artistic vomit in event history, all amid the chaos unleashed by the rowdy, alcohol-fueled audience. Reigning champion “El Wingador” reflects on his moments of glory and the journey to reclaim his title after it was unexpectedly nabbed by the small-but-mighty outsider Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas. No One Died: The Wing Bowl Story is a thrilling look at an electrifying era of trash talk, out-of-control crowds, and mouth-watering wings that took hold of the City of Brotherly Love, birthing a cultural phenomenon that will never be forgotten—from the first bite to the final wing.

It will be interesting to see if Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas was interviewed for the film. As far as I know, she has been radio silent for the past six years.

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“Unfinished Beef” fails to make streaming ratings chart

Entertainment Strategy Guy has a post about viewership for competitions that were streamed online with a section about Netflix’s “Unfinished Beef” hot dog eating contest between Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi on Labor Day. The audience was too small to make any streaming ratings chart.

So that’s the real sports. Now let’s talk not-so-real sports: Chestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef, Netflix’s latest foray into sort-of sports specials. This year, instead of competing in the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Competition (due to a sponsorship dispute), Joey Chestnut signed up for a Labor Day special on Netflix.

It didn’t make any of the ratings charts I track. It didn’t make Netflix’s global charts, either, so it either had less than 2.5 million hours or less than 1.5 million views global.

And I didn’t hear anyone talking about it either. The usual argument for these specials is all the free earned media that Netflix can get, but this rebuts that. I did a Google search a week later, and there were very few articles about Joey Chestnut setting a new record. There were a handful, mostly from the trades or Netflix itself.

I have not seen any official audience statistics from Netflix for “Unfinished Beef” and they have announced no plans for any future eating contests.

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