USA Today reports that the audience for Nathan's hot dog eating contest on ESPN2 fell to 831,000 after attaining about a million viewers the previous two years. The decline is attributed to the absence of Joey Chestnut.
Jeremy Schapp will replace Mike Golic Jr. as Rich Shea's partner for announcing today's Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest on ESPN2. This is not Schaap's first coverage of eating contests; in 2008, he did a segment for E:60 about competitive eating. Tiffany Greene will be the sideline announcer. Schaap & Greene did an interview about their coverage of the event.
Nathan’s womens contest on ESPN3
The ESPN schedule for July 4 has been finalized and the women’s Nathan’s Famous contest will be streamed on ESPN3 yet again while ESPN2 shows the talk show “First Take”. ESPN3 will also offer individual cameras for Geoff Esper and Miki Sudo.
2024 ESPN Nathan’s schedule
The ESPN schedule for July 4 is now out. The men’s Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating contest will be televised on ESPN2 at noon eastern and then rerun several times throughout the day. It appears the women’s competition will be relegated to streaming yet again. The 2019 documentary, “The Good, The Bad, The Hungry” will also be televised on July 4 at 10pm on ESPN2.
Awful Announcing has an interview with Paul Page about covering the Nathan's Famous finals for ESPN for 13 years. Erik Denmark did a post about the 2008 Time Magazine picture of Barack Obama watching the Nathan's finals that Page mentioned in the interview.
Linda Cohn has uploaded an excerpt from Friday night's ESPN Sportcenter of her interview with Joey Chestnut and Los Angeles Chargers defender Joey Bosa about competing in Monday's pistachio eating contest in Santa Monica. Bosa says that his new head coach Jim Harbaugh hoped he would win the contest.
Awful Announcing has posted a segment from a recent podcast in which Adam Amin discusses calling Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest on ESPN.
The broadcast of Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest on ESPN2 was the most viewed program on July 4 despite being delayed for 2 hours by rain and lightning.
ESPN has a press release about the 2023 edition of Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest. The women's contest will be streamed on ESPN3 starting at 10:45 am Eastern. The men's competition will be broadcast live on ESPN2 starting at noon. John Anderson and Rich Shea will be the commentators.
2023 ESPN Nathan’s schedule
The ESPN July 4 schedule is now out. The men’s Nathan’s finals will be televised live on ESPN2 at noon Eastern and then rerun five times. The women’s contest is not listed, but it appears it will be relegated to streaming again. At 10am, ESPN will show Wimbledon and ESPN2 will air First Take. The documentary “The Good, The Bad, The Hungry” will also be shown twice on ESPN2.
A press release announces that ESPN has extended its contract with MLE to show Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest on July 4 until 2029. During that time period, the live contest will probably be web streamed only since ESPN will be broadcasting Wimbledon in early July until 2035.
ESPN has a press release about its telecast of the 2022 Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest. The men's contest will be live on ESPNews while the women's contest will be streamed on ESPN3 while ESPNews shows Sportscenter. (The two main ESPN channels will be showing Wimbledon.) John Anderson will replace Mike Golic Jr. as Rich Shea's broadcast partner.
The women's Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest has yet to be listed on the ESPN July 4 schedule. The MLE page about the contest says it will be on ESPNews, but that channel is showing Sportscenter all morning.
The July 4 schedule for the ESPN family of networks is now out. ESPN News at noon has a showing of "Great American Events", which is what the Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest has been listed as previously. ESPN and ESPN2 will be televising Wimbledon tennis at that time. ESPN will show a rerun at 4pm.
In their latest podcast, Fink Beats the Stomach interviews Mike Golic Jr. about covering the 2020 Nathan's hot dog eating contest.
According to ratings announced today, 966,000 viewers watched Saturday's broadcast of the Nathan's finals on ESPN. Despite that number being the lowest since 2005 (860,000), it was the top rated original cable program for the day. The official rating was 0.32, down from 0.55 in 2019.
2020 Nathan’s finals to be held without fans
updateMiki Sudo recorded a video about the contest. She says (around 3:00) that the field will not be selected solely on MLE ranking but that geographic location and media availability will also be considered.
A press release (screen capture) announces that the July 4, 2020 Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating contest will be held without fans at an undisclosed Coney Island location. Five men and five women will compete; defending champions Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo are the only listed competitors. ESPN will televise the contest at noon Eastern with Mike Golic, Jr. replacing Adam Amin as commentator. The women’s division will be broadcast on ESPN or ESPN2 for the first time with a starting time of 12:20 pm. The Wall Street Journal has a paywalled article.
The episode of ESPN's Cheap Seats in which the Sklar brothers commentate on the telecast of the 2004 Nathan's Famous finals can be viewed on youtube.
The July 4 schedule for the ESPN family of networks is now available, and the 2020 Nathan's finals are not currently listed. ESPN's schedule for noon Eastern has "Great American Events", which could be a placeholder for the competition.
The Sklar brothers posted a clip about Dale Boone from the 2005 Alka Seltzer US Open of Competitive Eating that was originally used in their "Cheap Seats" program.
The New York Post reports that Adam Amin, who has been a commentator for ESPN on recent Nathan's Famous finals, will be leaving for Fox Sports.
The 2006 Krystal Square Off will be replayed on ESPN at 1:30 pm Eastern on May 2.
"Hamilton" playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda was disappointed he missed Joey Chestnut in a Zoom group chat started by Katie Nolan of ESPN to determine who could bring in the most famous participant. (Joey appears around 3:50). Mike Golic Jr took credit for delivering Joey Chestnut.
2006 Krystal Qualifier circuit
The 2006 Krystal Square Off will be rerun on ESPN2 at noon Eastern. Here is how the field for that event was selected:
2006 Qualifier Winners
| 2006 Aug 27 | 1st | 62 | 8 min | Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas | Krystal Square Off qualifier | Chattanooga, TN |
| 2006 Sep 4 | 1st | 52 | 8 min | Joey “Jaws” Chestnut | Krystal Square Off qualifier | Jacksonville, FL |
| 2006 Sep 10 | 1st | 52 | 8 min | Bob “The Notorious B.O.B.” Shoudt | Krystal Square Off qualifier | Nashville, TN |
| 2006 Sep 17 | 1st | 48 | 8 min | Pat “Deep Dish” Bertoletti | Krystal Square Off qualifier | Knoxville, TN |
| 2006 Sep 24 | 1st | 53 | 8 min | Chip “The Phenom” Simpson | Krystal Square Off qualifier | Atlanta, GA |
| 2006 Oct 1 | 1st | 53 | 8 min | Tim “Eater X” Janus | Krystal Square Off qualifier | Memphis, TN |
| 2006 Oct 8 | 1st | 37 | 8 min | Dale “Mouth of the South” Boone | Krystal Square Off qualifier | Perry, GA |
| 2006 Oct 15 | 1st | 38 | 8 min | Crazy Legs Conti | Krystal Square Off qualifier | Jackson, MS |
Defending champion bye: Takeru Kobayashi
Wild cards (4): 1) Rich LeFevre 51 2) Seaver Miller 41 3) Justin Mih, 36 4) Arturo Rios, 36
ESPN2 announced it will rerun the 2006 Krystal Square Off finals at noon Eastern Sunday followed at 1pm by the 2006 Johnsonville Brat Eating World Championship held at Sheboygan, WI's Brat Days festival. The programs are part of ESPN8: The Ocho, an entire day devoted to non-traditional fields of competition.
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