An announcement from the Florida High School Athletics Association this week confirmed that Florida will become the latest state to add competitive eating to their slate of officially-sanctioned high school sports.
As competitive eating superstars like Takeru Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut have brought competitive eating into the mainstream with electric, nationally-televised, record-breaking performances at each year’s annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, the United States has seen the sport steadily grow in popularity. With 14 states already offering competitive eating at the high school level, the sport will kick off its first official FHSAA-sanctioned season in the fall of 2024 with Strawberry Crest, Plant City and Durant all expected to field a team.
Teams will consist of three “primary” eaters and three alternates. In the sport’s regular season, hot dog and buffalo wing eating contests will be spread throughout the fall while the hot dog and buffalo wing eating contests will be officiated on eight- and five-minute time limits, respectively. Following each competition, both individual eaters and their teams will be ranked by the FHSAA based on individual and weighted team average performance. FHSAA’s final-season rankings will then determine seeding for district competitions — followed shortly thereafter by regional and state level competitions taking place in January.
“It’s unbelievable how we’ve seen the sport grow in popularity over the years, not just here in the United States but internationally as well,” said Major League Eating president Kenny E. Ditall. “We’ve seen more and more states embracing competitive eating at the high school level and we’re excited to see Florida become the latest state to give these athletes an official platform to compete amongst their peers.”
GOTCHA!!
This year we decided to bring back an old tradition to run an April Fools’ Day story to trick our readers. We hope you enjoyed our little prank.