The New York Times has introduced a sports-themed version of its popular word puzzle game in collaboration with The Athletic. Players can access Connections: Sports Edition through web browsers or mobile devices, making it available to puzzle enthusiasts across multiple platforms.
The game challenges participants to identify connections between 16 words organized into four distinct categories. Players must successfully group all four words in a category to remove them from the board, with a maximum of four incorrect guesses allowed before the game ends. The difficulty levels are color-coded, progressing from yellow as the easiest through green, blue, and purple as the most challenging.
Today’s puzzle, puzzle #701 from August 25, 2026, features four categories: AFC North football teams, European Olympic host cities since 2000, Champions League winners, and New York Giants players. The solutions include team names like Bengal and Brown, cities such as London and Paris, clubs including Ajax and Real Madrid, and player names like Burns and Holland. Knowledge of European soccer provides an advantage for solving this particular edition.
Like the original Connections game, the sports version resets daily with increasingly difficult word combinations. Players can shuffle the board layout and share their results on social media upon completion.
Originally reported by Mashable →
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