This post is for the breakdown of the IFOCE contract by “Who Is OJ Rifkin?” which begins:

Let’s talk about the “lovely little contract” that these guys make you sign. I will be dedicating my next few postings to this issue. Of course those eaters who have sworn undying allegiance to MLE will dismiss or disregard this issue. For those of you who might care about things like ownership of your name and fair compensation may wish to read and comment on this issue. Perhaps the best way to proceed is to break it up in a few pieces and analyze what it really means. You may not like the author of this posting but realize this: I did not create this contract the Shea brothers did:

Here we go part 1 of the contract:

IFOCE
Membership Agreement

This agreement (The “Agreement”) is made and entered into this __________day of__________,
2004, by and between International Federation of Competitive Eating, Inc., with its principle offices
At 151 W. 25 street, 4th floor, New York NY 10001 (“IFOCE”), and ______________ an, individual residing at _________________(“Performer”) upon the following Terms and conditions.

1. The term of this agreement shall commence as of the date hereof and shall continue for a period of eighteen (18) months thereafter.

OK, so far so good…next part:

2. (a) Performer shall have official status of an “IFOCE Eater” during the term with eligibility to participate in IFOCE events. Performer recognizes the benefits of the eligibility and status of an IFOCE eater and in consideration of such benefits, performer agrees to participate solely and exclusively in organized competitive eating events, exhibitions and appearances of any kind in the media related to eating (collectively “Eating Events”) Which are sanctioned and approved by the IFOCE. Performer shall notify IFOCE in advance of competing or appearing in any eating events not sanctioned by the IFOCE and must obtain IFOCE’s prior in order to participate or appear. This approval maybe withheld in IFOCE’s sole judgement based on safety of such Eating Events, competition with other organizations or other conflict with the reasonable objectives of IFOCE.

LET’S TALK ABOUT THE SECTION ABOVE: WHAT DOES THIS MEAN AND IS THIS AN ETHICAL CONTRACT? If so why or why not?

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The Sheboygan Press has an article about the amateur bratwurst contest to be held at the Brat Days festival this weekend which includes the following quotes on the cancellation of the IFOCE contest:

Officials at Johnsonville Sausage, which sponsors the brat-eating contest and the festival itself, declined to comment Tuesday.

Johnsonville dropped the event as part of a public relations “strategy shift,” Johnsonville Marketing Manager Cory Bouck said early in July. The contest “wasn’t the exact message we want to get out,” he said.

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(From sonyatheblackwidow.com) The website for the supermarket chain Harris Teeter has a press release about Sonya Thomas’ commerical for house brand paper plates. The other three commercials in the advertising campaign star former wrestler Hulk Hogan, speed drummer Mike Mangini and radio Host Art Bell. Harris Teeter is based on the east coast with most locations between Maryland and Georgia. Some of the ads have the products used in unconventional manners:

Bell promotes aluminum foil for Harris Teeter by shaping it into a hat with an antenna. Why, you may ask? It’s Art Bell, he needed to see if the yourhome aluminum foil protected his brain from paranormal frequencies.

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Takeru Kobayashi’s commercial for Coors Light can be viewed at http://youtube.com/watch?v=9dKX04NGXTk

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AOL FanHouse has an entry about competitive eating on television:

Richard Sandomir, the great sports TV reporter for the New York Times, explores the way Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest has become a big TV event, and he says that with about 1.5 million people tuning in (exact numbers have not been released), Major League Eating could become a major player on cable TV.

The entry also speculates that Nathan’s could move to Spike TV in 2008.

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From today’s Sheboygan Press:

Richard Shea, president of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, said he was surprised when Johnsonville told the group — about six months ago — that the event would not continue. It has been part of the Sheboygan Jaycees-sponsored event each of the last two years.

“We were surprised and we were saddened,” Shea said. “We would have loved to have been there.”

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Richard Sandomir, the television sports columnist for the New York Times, wrote about competitive eating on television. Cable network deals and ratings are discussed at the end of the column:

ESPN started carrying the Nathan’s event in 2004, and it drew 926,000 viewers. In 2005, it dipped to 860,000, but it leaped to 1.46 million last year, a level it probably reached on Wednesday.

“We’ve done other competitive eating contests,” said David Berson, an ESPN executive vice president. “But we focus on the hot dog. It’s the marquee event.”

But with ESPN’s deal now expired, Spike wants to take gluttony (not entirely a male pursuit, as the M.L.E. star Sonya Thomas shows) to its male-focused network as a companion to its Ultimate Fighting Championship franchise. Spike has shown one Major League Eating event (the St. Patrick’s Day corned beef and cabbage, jalapeños and green doughnuts show from Savannah, Ga., attracted 739,000 viewers) and is scheduled to carry three more.

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CNNMoney.com has an article analyzing Nathan’s Famous as an investment:

The hot dog eating contest has helped make Nathan’s a popular brand. But many investors may be surprised to know that the franchise fast food chain company is a publicly traded company and its stock has been on a roll.

Shares of the hot dog seller are up 22 percent this year, and last month the company reported stellar results for its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended in March.

The company said fourth-quarter earnings soared 97 percent from a year ago and revenue jumped 12 percent.

There is also a direct link to last week’s Jeanne Moos segment about Kobayashi’s condition.

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A press release announces that Heinz is now the official ketchup of Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Investor Nelson Peltz, who now holds a seat on the Heinz board, was willing to pay $200,000 in 2006 to cosponsor the contest.

update post-gazette.com has an article about the sponsorship

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A commercial for paper plates starring Sonya Thomas can be viewed at http://youtube.com/watch?v=RQQ37rlvMV4 In the commercial, Sonya compares Harris-Teeter (a southern supermarket chain) house brand paper plates with name brand paper plates.

In other Sonya Thomas news, sonyatheblackwidow.com has brought up a blank page for the past two days.

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Newsday reports that Nathan’s quarterly earnings increased almost 100% between 2006 and 2007:

Westbury-based Nathan’s, which started as a nickel hot-dog stand in Coney Island in 1916, said it earned $1.2 million in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended March 25, compared with earnings of $630,000 in the same period a year ago.

The company said sales in the quarter were $9.8 million, up from $8.7 million in the year-ago period.

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(From anonymous & GJoe) IFOCE.com announces that cash prizes will be awarded to the top 5 finishers of the Nathan’s finals. The breakdown follows:

1st Place: $10,000
2nd Place: $5,000
3rd Place: $2,500
4th Place: $1,500
5th Place: $1,000

The total of the prizes is $10K less than the $30K purse for Krystal Square Off III (and $5,000 less than the recent Bridezilla cake contest first place prize)

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On his news page, Kobayashi announces the opening of his online store. 8 T shirt designs are available for purchase. The cost of the shirts is $22 and purchases are made via paypal. A T shirt from a Japanese source is also available.

The website says that a diet pill will go on sale soon. Kobayashi not only uses the supplement three times a day, he personally developed its formulation:

Kobayashi has invested countless hours experimenting, modifying and improving his weight maintenance pill, K. He takes the pill three times a day, after each meal. K, an all herbal pill, is soon to be ready to be shared with the public. We are in the final testing stages now.

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The New York Times has an article about the contest to find the best user created Heinz commercial. The Heinz logo on the IFOCE.com home page links to the contest website. The submitted commercials receive some negative reviews:

Heinz hopes to show more than five of them, if there are enough that convey a positive, appealing message about Heinz ketchup, he said. But advertising executives who have seen some of the entries say that Heinz may be hard pressed to find any that it is proud to run on television in September.

“These are just so bad,” said Linda Kaplan Thaler, chief executive of the Kaplan Thaler Group, an advertising agency in New York that is not involved with Heinz’s contest.

One of the most viewed Heinz videos — seen, at last count, more than 12,800 times — ends with a close-up of a mouth with crooked, yellowed teeth. When Ms. Kaplan Thaler saw it, she wondered, “Were his teeth the result of, maybe, too much Heinz?”

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Philly.com’s Inqlings page has a paragraph about Bill “El Wingador” Simmons’ establishment:

El Wingador’s To-Go – the eatery at Fourth and Girard backed by five-time Wing Bowl winner Bill “El Wingador” Simmons – is dark after only four months. Sign on the door mentions a temporary closing due to “unforeseen circumstances beyond our control” and expresses a hope to “reopen soon, possibly under new management.”

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Yahoo News reports:

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank on Wednesday said he will introduce a bill this week to lift a ban on online gambling.

Online casino goldenpalace.com was a major sponsor of IFOCE contests before bank transactions for internet gambling were outlawed last October.

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There are two commercials for Axia3 on youtube with a lot of IFOCE footage on youtube: 30 seconds, 2 minutes 20 seconds

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(From Philly Guy) Heinz is now listed as an IFOCE sponsor on ifoce.com. Investor Nelson Peltz, who has obtained a seat on the Heinz board, was willing to pay $200,000 to cosponsor Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest last summer. The link goes http://www.topthistv.com/, a site for people who create their own Heinz commercials.

update The sponsorship was mentioned in a comment by Philly Guy and not Wing Tut

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Brian Seiken has switched his videos to pay per view. The cost is $2.99. Don “Moses” Lerman is the guest and he will receive some of the revenue. A free preview clip is available.

The new poll asks how likely are you to purchase Brian Seiken’s videos.

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NetFlix and Spike TV have been added to the sponsors list on ifoce.com, so there will probably be a contest sponsored by NetFlix in the not too distant future. The presence of SpikeTv probably implies that the series of Spike TV MLE contests will continue despite the current lack of a working MLE page on spiketv.com

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(From AICE News) ADLAW reports that the Federal Communciations Commission has fined CBS, the owner of 610 WIP of Philadelphia, $4,000 for banning Arnie “Chowhound” Chapman from competing in Wing Bowl 13 for being a member of AICE when no explicit rule prohibiting eaters from that organization existed:

The station said it disqualified him from competing in Wing Bowl 13 because he belonged to a competitive eating association, the Association of Independent Competitive Eaters (AICE). CBS stated that AICE is a rival of the group historically associated with the Wing Bowl, the Independent Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE).

CBS argued that Mr. Chapman should have known that he could not compete in the contest because members of IFOCE-rival associations previously had been disqualified from participating in the Wing Bowl 12 for the same reason. CBS also pointed to contest rules that allowed the station to disqualify contestants for subjective criteria, and a rule requiring contestants be station listeners. Mr. Chapman did not reside within the station’s broadcast area, so he could not be a listener, CBS argued.

The FCC noted that according to its rules, broadcasters are required to “fully and accurately disclose the material terms” of a contest. Further, such contests must be conducted “substantially as announced or advertised.”

The FCC concluded that CBS willfully violated these rules and fined the station $4,000.

update More information can be found in the document detailing Chapman’s complaint at fcc.gov CBS claimed that Joe Menchetti’s disqualification from Wing Bowl 12 should have made Chapman aware that non-IFOCE members were not welcome:

[Chapman’s] participation was incompatible with the IFOCE’s participation. Chapman had at least constructive or presumptive knowledge of this from the facts surrounding Gentleman Joe’s disqualification from Wing Bowl 12 and from the realities of the competitive eating world . . . In Wing Bowl 12, WIP established that with IFOCE eaters included as Wing Bowl competitors, professional eaters allied with national organizations that are active IFOCE rivals would not be welcome as competitors.

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Has anyone seen the Coors Light ad starring Takeru Kobayashi? I have seen the other ads in the series with sprinter Michael Johnson and strongman Magnus Ver Magnuson. I have not been able to find the ad on CoorsLight.com either.

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(From megamunch) A cafepress store selling merchandise with the United Eaters of Pennsylvania logo has opened at http://www.cafepress.com/uepa

In other Pennsylvania eating organization news, one of the founders of EATORF has challenged UEPa in the comments and eatorf.com has been reserved but has yet to officially open.

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The website for Japanese branch of Frito Lay has a page for the snack foods endorsed by Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota and Tomoko Miyake. The automatically translated page says that Shirota tried to reproduce “hormone pot taste” in his snack, whatever that is.

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A commercial for Nobuyuki “The Giant” Shirota and Tomoko Miyake’s snack foods can be found at Tomoko Miyake’s home page at http://miyaketomoko.com/ I am not sure if the commercial was televised or if it was on the web only.

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