Why isn't Joey Chestnut competing at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest?

Joey Chestnut has become almost as tied to the Fourth of July as fireworks thanks to the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. He's the best to ever do it when it comes to Major League Eating (MLE) and, most certainly, when it comes to this vaunted Coney Island competition that we see in Brooklyn annually on Independence Day.

But for the 2024 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, we won't see Joey Chestnut on stage leaving hot dogs destroyed and his closest competitors on the horizon line of the rearview. He's not competing this year, the first time we've seen that in nearly two decades, which is a shock for the 40-year-old who is still the top-ranked eater in the world.

So why is Chestnut, a competitive eater still at the peak of his powers and in his prime not competing this year? There's a frustrating reason behind it but, at the same time, one that may not have been avoidable either.

Why isn't Joey Chestnut in the 2024 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest?

Joey Chestnut is not in the 2024 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest due to a branding dispute between Nathan's and MLE with Chestnut and his new partner, Impossible Foods (makers of meat alternatives like Impossible Burgers and much more). Chestnut and his team did not foresee this being an issue but ultimately ended up banned as they could not come to an agreement regarding how the eating legend would be able to endorse a sponsor but also a competing product to Nathan's.

In an interview prior to the 2024 contest with Emma Baccellieri of SI, Chestnut explained his side of the story, claiming that Nathan's and Major League Eating altered their previous agreements, which led to the dispute that the reigning champion of the event could not end in time to be able to compete in this year's contest.

"Everything with Impossible was perfectly fine by all my previous agreements," Chestnut said. "They changed terms and conditions [around] exclusivity. And it's not the first time they've changed some things, but it's the first time they've really changed things after the fact, and I had to say, 'Hey, it's too late, I've already started working with this brand.' This was never an issue in the past. And they tried to dance around it -- they changed a lot of terms, and then they escalated things to a degree they didn't imagine when they started leaking information and telling people I was banned and that I turned vegan, which clearly isn't the case."

With Chestnut out of the field, multi-time runner-up (including last year) Geoffrey Esper is now the favorite for the 2024 contest.

When was the last time Joey Chestnut didn't win the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest?

The last time that Joey Chestnut didn't win the Nathan's Hot Dog Contest was in 2015 as Matt Stonie bested him on Coney Island. In one of the biggest upsets we've ever seen, Chestnut came into the event as an eight-time reigning champion and the world record holder. On that Fourth of July, however, Stonie got him into a dogfight on the stage and eclipsed Chestnut by two hot dogs and buns, 62 to 60 in the contest.

How many times has Joey Chestnut won the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest?

The loss to Stonie is the only time since 2007 that Joey Chestnut hasn't won the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. As such, that means that the No. 1-ranked eater in the world is a 16-time champion of the event, by far the most in the event's recording history. He also remains the world record holder for the most hot dogs and buns eaten in 10 minutes at 76, which he did in 2021 after eating 75 the previous year.