(Washington, D.C., Thursday, March 28, 2019) – It’s a marriage of two American icons — baseball and hot dogs — and a new survey estimates that baseball fans will consume more than 18 million hot dogs and 4 million sausages during the 2019 Major League Baseball (MLB) season.

The Los Angeles Dodgers may have fallen just short of winning last year’s World Series, but the team can relish in a more important victory: fans are once again projected to consume the most hot dogs, totaling more than 2.7 million.  That is enough to round the bases at Dodger Stadium 3,750 times, and based on last year’s attendance, means that nearly three-quarters of fans at Dodger home games will eat a hot dog.

Eric Mittenthal, president of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, discusses the love affair that’s spanned decades.

SOUNDBITE #1:

BASEBALL AND HOT DOGS REMAIN INSEPARABLE. YEAR AFTER YEAR, HOT DOGS CONTINUE TO HIT IT OUT OF THE PARK AT THE CONCESSION STAND, EVEN AS TEAMS ARE INNOVATING TO OFFER MORE FOOD CHOICES AND INVENTIVE CREATIONS.  THERE’S SIMPLY NO REPLACING THE UNSHAKABLE BOND BASEBALL AND HOT DOGS SHARE.

SOUNDBITE #2:

THE COMBINED HOT DOG AND SAUSAGE TOTAL COULD STRETCH THE ENTIRE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES FROM T-MOBILE PARK IN SEATTLE TO SUNTRUST PARK IN ATLANTA.  THE HOT DOG TOTAL ALONE WOULD REACH AS HIGH AS MORE THAN FIVE THOUSAND ONE WORLD TRADE CENTERS IN NEW YORK CITY, THAT’S THE TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE AND SIXTH TALLEST IN THE WORLD.

For more on annual consumption data, visit hot-dog.org.