How to play Connections: Sports Edition
Sports Edition takes the Connections formula — sixteen answers, four hidden groups of four — and rebuilds it entirely from the sports world: players, franchises, rules, kits, commentary catchphrases. If you can argue about football transfers or NBA trades, this is your version.
Stuck on today's board? Connections Sports Edition Hints Today → — spoiler-safe tiers, from one nudge to the full explained answers.
The rules
- Sixteen answers hide four groups of four — find each group by selecting its four members.
- Groups are colour-coded by difficulty: 🟡 yellow easiest, then 🟢 green, 🔵 blue, and 🟣 purple, the trickiest.
- Four mistakes end the game. "One away…" means exactly three of your four picks belong together.
- Every answer belongs to exactly one group — a card that fits two categories is the puzzle's trap.
Strategy for sports fans
1Surnames are the classic trap
A grid full of COOK, WALKER, HALL and SWIFT looks like one big group — but Sports Edition loves splitting common surnames across sports. Before locking in "NFL running backs", check whether one of them is also a boxer, a keeper, or a NASCAR driver.
2Play the purple group backwards
The trickiest group is usually structural — "ILLEGAL ___ penalties", homophones of arenas, words hiding team names. If four leftover answers share no obvious sports link, ask what word could sit before or after all of them.
3Count leagues before guessing
When a category like "NFL running backs" feels certain, name the team each player is on. If you can't place one of them, that's often the plant from another group — the puzzle is built by sports editors who know exactly which names blur together.
4Start with what you'd bet on
Same as regular Connections: submit your most certain group first, even if it's yellow. Each solved group shrinks the pool and turns the trap answers into obvious leftovers.
NYT Connections Sports Edition — common questions
How is Connections Sports Edition different from regular Connections?
Same rules — sort sixteen answers into four colour-coded groups — but every category is sports: players, teams, rules, kits, moments. It's made by The Athletic (the NYT's sports newsroom), it's free, and it lives on The Athletic's site rather than the NYT Games app.
What time does Sports Connections reset?
At midnight in your own local timezone, like Wordle — not at midnight Eastern like regular Connections. Wherever you are, the new puzzle arrives when your clock strikes twelve.
What do the colours mean in Sports Connections?
The same difficulty ladder as regular Connections: yellow is the easiest group, then green, then blue, and purple is the trickiest — often wordplay or a sneaky link between the leftover answers.