• by Ray Schultz , January 29, 2025

The Athletic is partnering with The New York Times Games to launch its first daily sports game, Connections: Sports Edition.

The offering, which will debut on Sunday, February 9 with a football-themed puzzle, will leverage the success of Connections, the Times game that claims to be the most searched-for game on Google, and add a new area of growth for the Times. 

The new sports edition will feature categories that only sports fans can solve, The Athletic touts. It invites players to group 16 sports-related terms into four categories of four each. Only four mistakes are allowed.  

The sports edition is written by Mark Cooper, managing editor of The Athletic and now puzzle editor. New challenges will be posted every day at midnight local time.  

Launched in 2023, Connections has fans like Sarah Jessica Parker, Andy Cohen and Bowen Yang.