At Hot Dog Eating Contest, a Chance to Crown a New King

It is the Fourth of July in New York City, and that can mean only one thing. No, not fireworks, sweaty subway rides and family cookouts. It is time for the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island.

The contest has long been a holiday mainstay in New York, and must-see midday TV across the country. But this year’s event, which tests “competitive eaters” on how many hot dogs they can frantically scarf down in 10 minutes, promises to be unusually suspenseful.

For the first time in almost a generation, the men’s competition has no clear front-runner.

Joey Chestnut, the 16-time champion, was forced to part ways with the contest last month after he signed an endorsement deal with Impossible Foods, a rival to Nathan’s that makes vegan hot dogs.

Many viewers tuned in year after year just to watch Mr. Chestnut go through a pile of hot dogs like a wood chipper. News of his departure from the contest was met with the sort of public anguish one might expect for a major-league baseball player, not a man who ate 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes last July 4.

Even Senator Chuck Schumer, a Brooklyn native, mourned what he called “‘impossibly’ hard-to-swallow news.”

In an interview last month, George Shea, the charismatic showman who helped elevate this whole spectacle into the sort of event that is covered by The New York Times, said he was “devastated” by the situation.