Who is George Shea? Meet the legendary Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest host known for his spectacular presentations

The Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest has become synonymous with the Fourth of July and is one of the most popular sporting events of the holiday.

The rise of the hot dog eating contest was fueled by the emergence in the early 2000s of Takeru Kobayashi, the first eater to eat more than 50 hot dogs at the event. Once Joey Chestnut emerged as a worthy rival to Kobayashi, the contest became a must-attend event for many.

But while Kobayashi and Chestnut have both faded from the spotlight in recent years, one member of the event has remained the same: its host, George Shea.

Shea has long been associated with competitive eating and perhaps deserves as much credit for making Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest the success it is today.

Here’s what you need to know about Shea’s career and how his crazy-eating displays have stood the test of time at the hot dog eating contest.

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Who is George Shea?

George Shea is the announcer of the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest and the commissioner of Major League Eating (MLE). He is credited with turning the hot dog eating contest into a national phenomenon when MLE was just a fledgling idea in the 1990s.

“There was no business plan,” Shea said of MLE, according to Time magazine. “You know what I had in mind? I thought it was funny and absurd, and I like absurd things. So we always treated it like a sport, we called it a sport, we called them athletes.”

How did Shea succeed? Joey Chestnut credited Shea with “convincing the audience that these guys were athletes.” Shea’s wife also wrote for soap operas and the WWE, which helped inspire his sense of drama.

Shea’s pomp is on display every Fourth of July when he introduces the eaters with a series of heroic and hyperbolic speeches before the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest competition.

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George Shea’s Hot Dog Eating Contest Presentation

Shea explained that his process for developing his script is meticulous and that he begins working on it six weeks before the event.

“I have a script that literally covers everything, but I don’t memorize it all because it’s 20 to 30 pages,” Shea told Morning Brew in 2023. “I read it, read it, read it. And then I do it the day of. It gives me direction, but the competitor pitches are more thought out. I start writing pitches about six weeks in advance. And lately, as I’ve gotten older, and believe me, I’m very old, I want to do it earlier. I don’t want to be up the night before trying to remember an introduction. It just seems silly to me.”

Shea’s rehearsals have paid off, as he often delivers epic presentations to each competitor. The formula is simple. Keep the energy up and don’t be afraid to exaggerate, even if it means stretching the truth a little.

For example, his 2016 introduction of Crazy Legs Conti captured the personality of the eater extraordinaire.

“He was buried alive under 60 cubic feet of popcorn, and he ate to survive,” Shea shouted. “And that’s why we call him the David Blaine of the gut, the Evel Knievel of the digestive tract, the Houdini of Cuisini, Crazy Legs Conti!”

It’s not as outlandish as what Shea has been able to do with his presentations. His amusing – if obviously false – story about Tim “Eater X” Janus before the 2013 contest continues to fill the minds of hot dog eating contest fans everywhere.

“He lost his arm to a Bengal tiger when he was a kid at Zoo Atlanta,” Shea said as Janus took the stage. “But his arm grew back. He can speak neutrino, the language of the sun, and all day long he listens to conversations in the sky.”

I guess Shea wasn’t kidding when he said he “likes absurd things.” Which explains why it seems like his praise for Joey Chestnut has only grown. Still, his 2018 monologue about Chestnut remains a lasting memory.

In a world of nothingness. Of barren hills and cracked earth and once-proud oceans dried to sand, there will always be a monument to our existence. Bleached by the sun, perhaps, and dulled by time, but eternal. Because this man represents all that is eternal in the human experience. … Through the curtain of dawn, a comet shines to announce his arrival, and his victory will be recorded in every language known to history, including Klingon. The world champion of bratwurst, pierogi and Hooters chicken wing eating, eight-time world champion of Nathan’s Famous hot dog eating, the world’s number one eater, I present to you America itself, Joey Chestnut.

Shea will have to change his candidate for praise in 2024, with Chestnut out of the running. He will surely find a way to highlight the world’s best eaters like Geoffrey Esper.

Or maybe Shea will get darker with his humor, as he has in the past. Take his introduction of Yasir Salem in 2015, for example.

“He’ll do whatever it takes to win,” Shea said. “Three days ago he broke up with his girlfriend and euthanized his dog to leave a void inside him that he can now fill with hot dogs and buns.”

Indeed, Shea keeps fans on the edge of their seats before the hot dog eating contest, which is part of what makes the 10-minute pre-show to the main event a must-see.