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Jim Reeves was spitting blood. It was summer 2009, and the high school math teacher and competitive eater had driven eight hours from upstate New York to test his mettle at the Harrod Pork Rind Heritage Festival, the Rose Bowl of northwestern Ohio pork rind eating contests. In less varnished terms, Reeves wanted to see how many pork rinds he could shove down his throat in eight minutes—in front of 1,000 onlookers. It turned out to be a worthwhile trip: During what the pros call gurgitating, Reeves consumed 11.32 ounces of crispy pig skin, won $750, and emerged as the Pork Rind Eating Champion of the World. He also tore up the roof of his mouth. Pork rinds have sharp edges.
The competition, sponsored by Rudolph Foods Pork Rinds, was packaged by the unlikely duo of George and Richard Shea. Their 13-year-old brainchild, Major League Eating, is proof that competitive eating is both a freakish spectacle during which mostly male competitors gorge themselves on grotesquely large amounts of food (without vomiting) and a big business. In addition to planning 90 eating events a year for corporate sponsors—from the Acme World Oyster Eating Championship in New Orleans to the World CheeseSteak Eating Championship at Dorney Park in Allentown, Pa.—the competitive eating moguls guide the careers of the world’s best gurgitators, and, in return, require them to compete exclusively in MLE-sanctioned events. Their roster includes, among others, A-listers such as Joey “Jaws” Chestnut and Sonya “the Black Widow” Thomas. The Sheas’ power is such that when former hot dog eating champion Takeru Kobayashi declined to sign an MLE contract in 2010, it nearly scuttled his once-glorious career. ESPN pays the MLE an undisclosed amount for the exclusive rights to broadcast the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest live. Last year the event drew 1.7 million viewers, with advertising equivalency estimated by the MLE at $300 million.
The Sheas, who value their monopoly in the millions, are unlikely eminences. The well-coiffed PR executives spend most of their time hustling publicity for an equally stomach-churning audience: New York’s real estate development industry. George Shea also recently launched a bedbug detection company, which gels rather nicely with his other concerns. In all these endeavors, however, the Brothers Shea exhibit a preternatural ability to whip up buzz. When Ari Fleischer left his job as White House Press Secretary in 2003, the MLE offered him a job. (According to a spokesperson, Fleischer does not remember the offer.) The Sheas also devised the “belt-to-fat” theory: The less belly fat there is constricting the stomach, the more one can eat. Then they tried to get it published in the New England Journal of Medicine. “There is something that we’re doing with competitive eating,” says George, “that you couldn’t do with professional pogo stick jumping.”
The Shea buzz machine has successfully attracted sponsors such as 7-Eleven, Roy Rogers, Krystal, and Harrah’s, who pay handsomely for their services. Last July, Procter & Gamble‘s Pepto-Bismol paid Joey Chestnut, the LeBron James of hot dog eating, more than $100,000 to endorse its product and go on a six-stop media tour. “I guess, at a really functional level, the product is indicated for overindulgence of food and drink,” says Jeff Jarrett, associate marketing director for Pepto-Bismol, which declined to comment on the size of the endorsement deal. That month Pepto saw double-digit increases in sales, and the brand’s Facebook page ended up acquiring 40,000 new fans.
The Pepto would have come in handy earlier this month when Pizza Hut hired the MLE to help with its own calzone eating contest during the Spike TV Guys Choice awards. On the red carpet, Scarlett Johansson posed for a photo with Chestnut. (“I was like, goddamn, that girl’s gorgeous,” Chestnut recalls.) Pizza Hut got its money’s worth, too: The company says it has wrung $6 million worth of media coverage from the contest. “When we started there was zero money in competitive eating. Zero,” says George Shea. “This past year it was $550,000 in purses for the eaters. That could never happen if there wasn’t a league.”
