Jeremy Schaap, an ESPN stalwart for more than three decades, will be on the network’s broadcast of the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on Friday, July 4, with coverage of the women’s contest beginning at 10:45 am ET and the men’s at noon.
Schaap spoke to Front Office Sports about Joey Chestnut’s return to the contest, the oddest sports he’s ever covered, and his upcoming E:60 documentary on one-handed ex-Yankees pitcher Jim Abbott.
Front Office Sports: This is your second year doing the Hot Dog Eating Contest. Have you noticed a palpable change in the buzz with Joey Chestnut returning?
Jeremy Schaap: I think it’s a different kind of buzz. There was a lot of buzz last year because Joey wasn’t going to be present, so a lot of people were talking about that. That was the main storyline going into the event because he’s the greatest eater of all time, so it was going to be a wide-open competition.
Of course, with the return of Joey, a lot of people are talking about that as well. As someone covering the event, it’s great—there was a clear storyline last year and again this year.
FOS: If you were going to pick somebody to potentially pull off a huge upset, who would it be?
JS: Let the record show that last year, when we went around the horn and everybody picked the winner before the event, I did pick Pat Bertoletti. I wouldn’t want anyone to get the impression that I have this kind of prognosticative power with everything [laughs]—Pat put on a very strong performance last year, but we all know that Joey’s at a very different level of achievement in terms of beating everyone else in the field.
It would be quite a shock, as you say, but if I had to pick somebody from the field I guess I’d pick Pat.
FOS: What is the secret to Joey Chestnut’s monstrous dominance? If you look at various athletes, you can tell what physical and mental attributes contribute to their greatness. Have you been able to figure out what it is with Joey?
JS: I’m actually going to be speaking with Joey for the first time ever today [Wednesday]. That will really be my first opportunity to dive deep on the “Joey Difference.”
I’ve done a lot of research on the event, and I certainly watched Joey do his thing on many occasions. I was at the gym the other day, which is a rarity in and of itself, and I saw they were re-running the 2021 event, and I would have to imagine there’s something anatomical going on. And I would think there’s also something psychological, but I just can’t put my finger on it. I’m hoping I get some answers.
FOS: You’ve been at ESPN for over 30 years now. What are some other off-ball events you’ve covered?
JS: I love the oddball stuff. In fact, my history with competitive eating goes back to the dawn of the Joey Chestnut season. I think it was the first year of the E:60 era, we did a piece on competitive eating—the whole culture of it, its rise—it was just at the dawn of Joey’s era and the end of the Kobayashi era. I got to spend some time with George and Rich Shea, and if you haven’t, their on-screen personas line up real closely with who they actually are, which is fun.
Other stuff which comes to mind, I did a piece on chess-boxing back in 2006 in Germany. You alternate between rounds of boxing and speed chess. You win either via knockout or checkmate. There are some interesting strategies that go into that—if you’re in a bad position on the chess board, you have to go for a knockout the next round.
I did a piece on the famous cheese roll at Cooper’s Hill in England. It was just kind of getting big. It’s been around for hundreds of years, but it’s become sort of an internet sensation. It was wild. I went up to the top of the hill with a helmet cam and took one look down and was like, “There’s no freaking way.”
We did give the helmet cam to a guy who was already there, there was some liquid courage involved, and he ended up, I think, breaking his ankle, which was sad—but good video.
Another one which I kind of regret, it probably wasn’t the smartest decision, I did a story on the world’s fastest knife thrower—”The Great Throwdini”—remember, not the world’s most accurate knife thrower, the world’s fastest. I got on the wheel and he threw 20 knives at me. One slip and it’s next man up, there’s another guy on E:60. Fortunately, I survived that one.
FOS: You’ve got a new E:60 doc coming out about one-handed pitcher Jim Abbott later this month. What did you learn about him in the process of this research that you didn’t already know?
JS: What’s really significant about this show, and I really think one of the best things ever made at ESPN—directed by Mike Farrell—it’s Jim Abbott’s story, which is remarkable enough. But it’s also a story on the impact he’s had on the world around us, especially the limb-different community.
It wasn’t even a term that we used when he pitched that no-hitter in 1993, but it was really Mike’s vision to tell the story of Abbott and the impact he’s had. There’s kids in the film, you can see that in the moment how their lives were changed when he’s pitching, and how they interacted with him and were inspired by him. Then you see those same people decades later as adults.
I’ll let other people form their own judgments about what they think about the doc, but I think it’s certainly the most emotionally impactful film I’ve ever been a part of.
FOS: What’s the biggest story in sports that people aren’t talking about enough right now?
JS: I said this before, it’s really kind of the shift from Europe and the U.S. to the Middle East in terms of the sports center of power—especially Saudi Arabia, when we’re talking about the big events and leagues and athletes signing contracts to compete, and where boxing is going. All of that. That tectonic shift in terms of if something big’s going on it’ll be in the U.S., to now look what’s going on in Saudi Arabia. In the world of sports, I think it’s really a massive story.
I really believe we’re also seeing this shift in terms of the athletes that we cover. The ones coming up now grew up in a social media world. I think that changes their perspective on the way not only that they do their jobs but on how they interact with the media, fans, and management.
It’s a different kind of athlete empowerment that we’re seeing, and we just don’t know how it’s going to affect the entire ecosystem of sports, but we’re watching it happen—it’s that symbiosis between social media, and the athletes, and their own platforms. The way that it’s changing sports and sports media is profound.
