NYT Connections: Sports Edition

Connections: Sports Edition is the sports variant of the New York Times' grouping game, written by the staff of The Athletic. Sixteen terms are laid out in a grid and you must form four groups of four that share a common thread, 'Group sports terms that share a common thread', says the page. Three buttons frame the action: Shuffle to reshuffle the tiles, Deselect to cancel a selection, Submit to confirm a group, and a 'Mistakes remaining' line counts the errors beneath the grid. Each puzzle is dated, numbered and signed. An optional timer is activated from settings, with the prompt 'Time yourself for an extra challenge', and the choice is remembered by the browser, disabled by default.

1. Open the page and respond to the consent banner, which offers both 'Reject all' and 'Accept all'.
2. Press Play: the grid of sixteen terms appears beneath the date, number and byline for the day.
3. Select four terms that share the same thread, then confirm with Submit.
4. Use Shuffle to reshuffle the tiles and Deselect to clear your selection.
5. Watch the 'Mistakes remaining' line under the grid.
6. Go through settings to enable the timer if you want to play against the clock.

The four-groups-of-four format is already formidable with everyday vocabulary; paired with sports, it becomes downright tricky, because a group's common thread isn't always sporting and the sorting relies on expert references rather than dictionary associations. The puzzles are signed, written by the staff of The Athletic, and that byline changes the texture of the traps. The rest is intentionally spare: three buttons, an error counter, and a timer you only activate if you want to.

What the page shows before play: the 'Mistakes remaining' line placed under the grid, then the three buttons Shuffle, Deselect and Submit, and a settings panel for the timer. The browser also retains this setting, with the timer disabled by default.

Daily Sports Edition

A daily sports-themed version of Connections that applies the same four-groups-of-four rules as the main game.

NFL team-themed games

An NFL edition covers all 32 franchises.

Connections Coach

A community forum for the Sports Edition, available as a separate support resource.

• The timer is not active by default: it's an option in settings, not a constraint imposed on players.
• A connection is only used to track statistics; the daily grid itself is playable without an account.