Yesterday's NYT Connections Sports Edition Answer for October 26, 2026
Stuck on this board? Take one group's hint at a time, or jump straight to the full board. Nothing spoils until you tap.
Hints, one group at a time
Welcome back, puzzler. Connections Sports Edition for Monday, October 26, 2026 is live: 16 words, 4 hidden groups, yellow for the easiest link and purple for the trickiest.
Here's how this page works: each of the four hints below pairs a color with the idea behind that group, without naming a single word, so take them in order and stop as soon as one sport gives itself away. All four groups sit in the purple box further down, locked behind a tap. Nothing here reveals itself on its own, not a category and not the athlete you half-recognise.
Easiest link first. Stop as soon as a sport gives itself away.
Drumroll, please…
NYT Connections Sports Edition Answer for October 26
Spoiler below · tap to revealSPECIAL TEAMS POSITIONS
DESCRIBES A BALL HIT ON THE GROUND
NBA ROOKIES
_____ TACKLE
Tap a group to reveal it, or show the whole board at once.
About yesterday's puzzle
Yellow: SPECIAL TEAMS POSITIONS · Green: DESCRIBES A BALL HIT ON THE GROUND · Blue: NBA ROOKIES · Purple: _____ TACKLE
Published Monday, October 26, 2026, with 16 words across 4 groups.
Connections Sports Edition strategy that actually helps
Proven habits from top solvers, useful today and every day.
Most boards draw on three or four sports at once. Bucketing the sixteen words by which sport they belong to often exposes a group before you can name what unites it.
A name that belongs to a famous player in two different sports is on the board for exactly that reason. When a surname feels obvious, check who else has carried it.
On the main Connections board purple is a pun. Here it is more often a number: the same jersey, the same draft year, the same medal count. Count before you pun.
Words like drive, pitch, court, run and box are live in several sports simultaneously. They rarely sit in the group your first instinct puts them in.
When a group of players has nothing statistical in common, check where they used to play. Shared former clubs are one of the Sports Edition's favorite links.
The Athletic writes for people who read its coverage, so a group often keys off something from the past season rather than all-time history. Recent news is a better prompt than the record books.
How the yellow-to-purple scale works
The Sports Edition borrows the four colors from the main board, but the difficulty they encode is knowledge rather than wordplay. What moves a group down the scale here is how obscure the sport or era is:
One sport, current era, no trivia required. Take it first.
Still a single sport, but it expects you to follow it rather than just know of it.
Deeper trivia: older seasons, smaller leagues, or a fact rather than a name.
The link is usually a shared number, nickname, or coincidence across sports.
How to play Connections Sports
The rules in full, for anyone arriving without them.
Connections Sports Edition is the sports-themed version of NYT Connections, run by The Athletic. The format is identical, but every category leans on teams, athletes, leagues, venues, and sporting vocabulary.
- 1 Scan for the sport, then the link
Most boards mix several sports. Working out which sport a word belongs to often narrows the category before you know what the category is.
- 2 Select four words and submit
A correct group locks in with its name and color. A wrong group costs one of your four lives.
- 3 Watch for names that live in two sports
Surnames, city names, and terms like "pitch" or "drive" are deliberately shared between sports. Those are the decoys.
- 4 Clear all four groups before four mistakes
Four wrong guesses ends the puzzle and shows the full board.
The Athletic, part of The New York Times
16 words, 4 hidden groups of 4
4 mistakes
Midnight in your local timezone
Sports Edition rewards trivia more than wordplay does. Purple is still the trickiest group, but here it often hinges on a shared jersey number, a shared nickname, or a shared former club rather than a pun.
NYT Connections Sports Edition, answered
Quick answers to the questions we get every day.
What is NYT Connections Sports Edition?
It's a sports-themed spinoff of the daily Connections puzzle, published by The Athletic (an NYT company). The rules are identical: find four groups of four words that share a hidden sports link.
Where do I play Connections Sports Edition?
It lives on The Athletic, not the main NYT Games app. You can play the live board at nytimes.com/athletic/connections-sports-edition.
What time does a new puzzle come out?
Connections Sports Edition resets at midnight in your local timezone, wherever you are. The Athletic publishes on the same clock as the main Connections board, so the two reset together.
Can I play past Connections Sports Edition puzzles?
There's no in-app archive for past boards. Our past answers table below lists each board's four categories if you want to settle an argument.
Do I need to follow every sport to solve it?
No, but breadth helps more than depth. Boards usually spread across three or four sports rather than going deep on one, so a passing knowledge of several leagues beats expert knowledge of a single one. The trickiest groups tend to hinge on shared nicknames, numbers, or former clubs rather than on statistics.
What's the best way to avoid mistakes?
Bucket the board by sport first, lock the group you could name without thinking, then let "One Away" tell you which single word you have misfiled. See our strategy tips above.
Today's hints for every game
Same spoiler-safe format, for each daily puzzle we cover.
Past Connections Sports Edition answers
Recent Connections Sports Edition puzzles from the last two weeks, with each day's four themes. Handy for checking a board you missed, or for proving which sport a category actually belonged to. Today's board stays blurred until you tap it.
| Date | Answer |
|---|---|
| Oct 27Today | CLASSIC SPORTS VIDEO GAMES · FAMOUS CHICAGO ATHLETES · EUROPEAN SOCCER VENUES · STARTS WITH AN MLB STADIUM NAME |
| Oct 26 | SPECIAL TEAMS POSITIONS · DESCRIBES A BALL HIT ON THE GROUND · NBA ROOKIES · _____ TACKLE |
| Oct 25 | NHL TEAMS WITH SINGULAR NICKNAMES · CONTAINS A DOUBLE Z · FAMOUS CANADIAN ATHLETES · STARTS OF LOS ANGELES TEAM NAMES |
| Oct 24 | WHERE A PITCHER THROWS FROM · ACC SCHOOL LOCATIONS · GENO SMITH TEAMS · DALLAS _____ |
| Oct 23 | MLB TEAMS TO REACH THE LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES THIS YEAR · FORMER MLB TEAM NAMES · BREWERS ALL-STARS, HISTORICALLY · WORLD SERIES MVPS, WITH THE FIRST LETTER CHANGED |
| Oct 22 | WORKERS AT A STADIUM · GIANTS QBS, PAST AND PRESENT · PASS _____ · ENDS IN AN NBA MVP |
| Oct 21 | BASKETBALL SHOTS · ST. LOUIS TEAMS · PACKERS WRS, PAST AND PRESENT · BLUE _____ |
| Oct 20 | REJECTS A SHOT · MOUNTAIN WEST SCHOOLS · 49ERS CAREER PASSING LEADERS · ASSOCIATED WITH RUSSELL WESTBROOK |
| Oct 19 | A PHILADELPHIA ATHLETE · WAYS TO SHOW STANDING IN DIFFERENT SPORTS · U.S. OPEN GOLF WINNERS · BRAND NAMES OFTEN USED AS GENERIC TERMS |
| Oct 18 | THE BEAUTIFUL GAME, IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES · OSCAR-NOMINATED BOXERS · WASHINGTON COMMANDERS · SPORTS _____ |
| Oct 17 | A SWIMMER'S NEEDS · WORDS IN ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE TEAM NAMES · HEISMAN TROPHY WINNERS · WNBA TEAMS, MINUS THE FIRST LETTER |
| Oct 16 | SOCCER REFEREE DECISIONS AFTER A FOUL · ONOMATOPOEIAS · FIRST WORDS IN NFL STADIUM NAMES · CAN BE PRECEDED BY "CROSS" |
| Oct 15 | DELIVER THE BALL TO A TEAMMATE · PLACES WHERE ONE SCORES · MLB PITCHERS TO THROW A PERFECT GAME · _____ MASK |
| Oct 14 | PEOPLE IN THE STANDS · BASKET OFF AN OFFENSIVE REBOUND · MADISON _____ · PRECEDED BY "T-" |