Competitive eating

Start of competitive eating

Jul 4, 1916

Nathan's Famous hot dogs held its first Fourth of July hot dog-eating contest in Coney Island.

Contest canceled

Jul 4, 1941

Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating contest was canceled as a protest to the war in Europe.

Civil unrest

Jul 4, 1971

Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating contest was canceled as a protest to civil unrest and the reign of free love in the United States at the time.

International Federation of Competitive Eating

Jan 1, 1997

The IFOCE organizes, supervises and regulates eating contests around the world and plays a central role in competitive eating.

Glutton bowl

Apr 28, 2002

Glutton Bowl was produced by the IFOCE for the Fox network. The Glutton Bowl was a 32 eater tournament and was won by Takeru Kobayashi of Japan.

Association of Independent Competitive Eaters

Jan 1, 2004

This was the creation of a smaller league that followed "picnic style" competitive eating rules which do not allow for food dunking of food in water.

ESPN

Apr 28, 2006

During 2006, ESPN telivised 3 hours of IFOCE competitive eating events including Nathan's Famous hotdogeating contest, the Johnsonville Brat contest and the Krystal Hamburger contest.

Spike tv

Feb 16, 2007

Spike tv announced that it would be televising Major League Eating events on its cable network channel. The event televised was called "Chowdown"