July is National Hot Dog Month, so it’s not surprising that Nathan’s Famous made their annual hot dog eating contest this week. What may be a surprise, is how Joey Chestnut, expected to win the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on the Fourth of July for the 16th time, has cashed in on his prowess as a competitive eater.
Last year, Chestnut told USA TODAY Sports he earned more than $500,000 and his net worth exceeds $4 million. “You have to see yourself as a business when you’re working for yourself,” said Chestnut, 39, who last year formed Joey Chestnut LLC and is represented by Everest Talent Management. “But I never knew how far it would go.”
Most of his income is generated by contest earnings, paid appearances and endorsement deals, according to Chestnut, who has eaten as many as 76 hot dogs and buns during Nathan’s 10-minute contest. No other competitor has eaten more than 64½.
As USA TODAY Sports reports, almost all other competitive eaters do it part-time because they can’t earn enough from it to make a living — much less the millions of dollars Chestnut said he has amassed.
Last week, days before the hot dog eating contest he has dominated since 2007, Chestnut reflected on his decision in 2010 to leave his job with a construction management company in Northern California and become a full-time competitive eater. “My mom was worried,” he said. “I mean, it’s nice to have a job. You’ve got health care and retirement, all that stuff. So I had to convince my mom that I still had a plan for all that stuff.”
By 2010, Chestnut had won the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest three times. Yet he still was working full-time for the construction management company and competing in food contests on weekends. Then came an offer from Pepto-Bismol.
The company wanted him to promote and participate in four competitive eating contests and would pay him $10,000 for each event, according to Chestnut, who said the problem was he’d have to miss several days of work. “So I ran it by my boss and he was like, ‘Oh, why don’t you just take the month off?’ ” said Chestnut, who did just that.
In a 2010 press release, Pepto-Bismol announced the promotion: The company would host four eating contests over five weeks during which teams of challengers would compete against Chestnut at food festivals in Portland, Oregon, Austin, Texas, San Francisco and Orchard Park, New York. After collecting on the four promotional contests, Chestnut said he made a decision.
With the blessing of his mother, he became a full-time competitive eater. Proof it was financially viable came in 2014, when at the age of 30, Chestnut, then living in San Jose, California, bought his first house – for $618,000, according to property records.
Chestnut, who lives in the Indianapolis area with his fiancée, said he travels about 150 days a year for contests and appearances. This year, that included a burrito-eating contest in Milwaukee, where he scarfed 14½ burritos in 10 minutes and pocketed the first-place payout of $5,000.
He declined to provide specific figures for his paid appearances. But with the hopes of further leveraging his celebrity, Chestnut signed with Everest Talent Management a year ago. “I’m really good at eating, (but) I don’t know my worth,” Chestnut said. “I’m not good at negotiating contracts or making sure the contracts don’t conflict with each other. So it was really important.”
Over the past year and a half, the company secured him promotional deals with DUDE Wipes, Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers, Wonderful Pistachios and Pepsi. As far as his net worth is concerned, Chestnut said he has amassed more than $4 million thanks to his good fortune. That includes buying stock in a company later acquired by Tesla.
Chestnut said he has dabbled with his own YouTube channel, but it lacks what he loves most about competitive eating. On Tuesday, he likely will pocket another $10,000, which goes to the winner, but said money is not what drives him back to Coney Island every Fourth of July, where thousands of spectators cheer his every bite.
“I love the competition,” he said. “The competition is the best.”
The Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest women’s competition will stream on the ESPN app at 10:45 a.m. ET. The men’s competition will kick off at noon ET on ESPN2 and stream on the ESPN app.
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