This one makes NO sense…
Major League Eating announced on Tuesday that Joey Chestnut is unable to participate in the 2024 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest after he partnered with a rival brand.
Chestnut recently signed a deal with Impossible Foods, a rival of Nathan’s that has launched a vegan wiener.
Thus, Major League Eating ruled that as long as the 16-time winner of the contest has a deal with Impossible Foods, he will not be allowed to compete at the July 4 spectacle.
Full article, HERE from Fox.
Soooo, he didn’t have a contract with Nathan’s, signed with somebody else, and now he’s banned?
What are they afraid of? That he’ll mention his sponsor? How frikken petty is that?
Sigh… It’s…sigh, never mind.
And another ‘petty’ one is, to my mind, the US Olympic team choice to leave Caitlin Clark off the USA team. A lot of folks are trying to ‘justify’ it, one example-
Through 13 games so far, Clark’s 70 turnovers are by some distance the most of any player in the league and her average of 5.4 turnovers a game is well clear of Alyssa Thomas’s 4.3 in second place.
Clark is also shooting just 37.3% from the floor and 33% from three, which is arguably her greatest weapon, and it seems unlikely that the Indiana Fever would command any less attention from opponents on the Olympic stage.
On statistics alone, then, it is difficult to justify Clark’s inclusion; though by the same metrics, Diana Taurasi’s inclusion is even more difficult to explain given she is averaging just 16.6 points on just 37.1% shooting, while contributing fewer rebounds, assists and steals per game.
Full article, HERE from CNN.
Another one I’ve heard is that her fans would pitch a fit if she didn’t get a lot of playing time. Really? So, you’re willing to send all those eyes somewhere else, once again making the Olympic team a ho hum non-event?
Clark, love her or hate her, has brought a LOT of eyes and money to the WNBA this year. Yes, she’s a rookie, she would not have been the first one selected to the team by a long shot. Four other rookies have been selected- Rebecca Lobo in 1996, Diana Taurasi in 2004, Candace Parker in 2008 and Breanna Stewart in 2016. Note that Taurasi is still on the team, even with her low production…
Oh well, hoist on their own petard, once again…
If I were Nathan’s, I wouldn’t call a vegan brand competition.
Agreed.
But their game, their rules.
Impossible Foods now has Joey under a sponsorship contract. I’m betting that a condition in that contract is that he won’t publicly promote meat products or participate in events that do so, as it would be both a conflict of interest, and would do damage to Impossible Foods’ brand.
Also in February of this year, Joey stated that he’s 40 years old and that these contests are hard on his body[1].
Putting those two together, I suspect this is an intentional move on his part that allows him to earn a sponsorship income based on past fame, while also providing him a convenient pretext to lesson (or stop) his own participation in these contests.
Nathan’s would likely have expected Joey to continue on as normal, were he to enter into a sponsorship contract with them.
[1]: https://nypost.com/2024/02/22/sports/food-poisoning-diet-changes-joey-chestnut-isnt-slowing-down/
I read or heard somewhere that Chestnut got $200,000 from Nathan’s in appearance money to be in last year’s contest. $200k vs $1.4 million (his reported income from the sponsorship deal) isn’t a hard choice to make.
Though I wouldn’t call a vegan product a Hot Dog either.
“Clark, love her or hate her,”
Neither
Couldn’t care less………………..
X2
Does give all the talking heads something to blather about.
Eating a vegan’s wiener is unwholesome and un-American. It’s like eating yellow snow – in a roundabout way. Whatever happened to “Where’s the beef?”
Speaking of petty, it’s hoist BY their own petard. A petard was a bell shaped breaching weapon.
“‘Tis great sport to see the engineer hoist by their own petard “
It’s odd that while the meaning of the words have faded, the meaning behind the quote remains the same.
Don’t get me started on decimate.
The actual idiom is ‘Hoist with their own petard’. On or By are both acceptable, because it is the bomb’s explosion that is ‘hoisting’ them into the air.
All- Interesting points… JFM, exactly, e.g. it’s gonna blow up in their faces with them attached to it!
Modern sport…
Is it about anything *but* money , politics and egos?
“Nathan’s Hotdogs” and “Impossible Foods” just got a TON of attention.
Good for them.
Basketball is a black sport invented by black people for black people and white people should not compete and must be pushed out of the sport. Because they have no place in it.
I’m not making that up, there are several black basketball players starting to sing that tune. No one is telling them to shut up. And Caitlin has been subject to some violence already from some of the black women players. Violence that the refs carefully ignore.
No, racial and ideology are FAR more important than doing well in the olympics. I seem to remember a very spoiled female soccer player blatantly throwing the game because a US win would have gone against her political ideals.
Peter- Not anymore…sigh
GB- Point!
John- Yeah…