NYT Connections Sports Edition Today: Hints And Answers For Saturday, Sept. 13

Each day’s game of NYT Connections Sports Edition goes live at midnight local time. Before we get to today’s Connections Sports Edition hints and answers, here’s what you missed on Friday:

ForbesNYT Connections Sports Edition Today: Hints And Answers For Friday, Sept. 12By Kris Holt

Happy Saturday, sports fans! I’m glad to have domestic European football (not soccer, sorry) games back after the international break, which was admittedly a solid one for my beloved Scotland.

There’s a busy slate of Premier League games today, with eight on the schedule. Bournemouth vs. Brighton looks like the tastiest one to me – I really like both teams and how they play. I’m interested to see how Nottingham Forest fare with Ange Postecoglou in charge as well.

North of the border, my dearest Dundee United have a tricky visit to Hibernian. I have my fingers crossed for a good result, but I’m not overly confident about getting three points there.

Before we get started, I’d like to plug the great community we have over on Discord, where we chat about Connections, other NYT games and all kinds of other stuff (I’d love to get some sports talk going there too!). It’s a fun hangout spot, and you’re welcome to hang out with us. Discord is also the best way to give me feedback about this column. I don’t look at the comments or Twitter very often.

Today’s NYT Connections Sports Edition hints and answers for Saturday, September 13 are coming right up.

How To Play NYT Connections Sports Edition

Connections Sports Edition is a free daily New York Times game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day and you can play on the NYT website. It works just like the regular Connections game, except everything is sports-related.

You’re presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like teams in a certain city, athletes who won Olympic gold in a certain discipline or just about anything else. There might be wordplay involved too, so be careful!

There’s only one solution for each puzzle, and there are often red herrings. You can shuffle the words around too. Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is typically the most difficult one.

If you make a guess and you’re incorrect, you’ll lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you’ll see a message telling you you’re one away from getting it right. As with Wordle and similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.

If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with the help of some hints, and, if you’re really struggling, today’s NYT Connections Sports Edition answers.

NYT Connections Sports Edition Hints

Scroll slowly! I’ll first give you a list of today’s Connections Sports Edition words, then a hint for each category. After that, I’ll reveal one word that goes into each group. Then I’ll tell you the category names, followed by the full answers.

Here’s what the grid looks like:

Today’s 16 words and logos are…

• BACKYARD
• MIRACLE
• BACKHAND
• SLICE
• BEVO
• SMASH
• MAJOR LEAGUE
• THE MIGHTY DUCKS
• INSIDE
• DROP
• FANTASY
• SIR BIG SPUR
• MYSTERY, ALASKA
• SMOKEY
• UGA
• SLAP SHOT

The hints for today’s Connections Sports Edition categories are:

• 🟨 Yellow group — often seen on clay and grass
• 🟩 Green group — flicks on the ice
• 🟦 Blue group — you may not see costumes on campus here
• 🟪 Purple group — take a swing and you might get this group right

One Answer For Each Connections Sports Edition Category

Need some extra help?

Be warned, we’re seriously starting to get into spoiler territory now.

Here is one correct answer for each of the four groups:

• 🟨 Yellow group — SLICE
• 🟩 Green group — MYSTERY, ALASKA
• 🟦 Blue group — SIR BIG SPUR
• 🟪 Purple group — FANTASY

NYT Connections Sports Edition Groups

Today’s Connections Sports Edition groups are…

• 🟨 Yellow group — tennis shots
• 🟩 Green group — hockey movies
• 🟦 Blue group — live college mascots
• 🟪 Purple group — _____ baseball

NYT Connections Sports Edition Answers

Final spoiler alert! I’m about to reveal today’s NYT Connections Sports Edition answers.

Scroll slowly!

This is your absolute last chance to back out.

Today’s NYT Connections Sports Edition answers are…

• 🟨 Yellow group — tennis shots (BACKHAND, DROP, SLICE, SMASH)
• 🟩 Green group — hockey movies (MIRACLE, MYSTERY, ALASKA, SLAP SHOT, THE MIGHTY DUCKS)
• 🟦 Blue group — live college mascots (BEVO, SIR BIG SPUR, SMOKEY, UGA)
• 🟪 Purple group — _____ baseball (BACKYARD, FANTASY, INSIDE, MAJOR LEAGUE)

I knew three of the hockey movies, but not MIRACLE. That was the only one that made sense to include. The yellows were no problem either.

I struck out with the blues and purples. I probably could have figured out the latter if I’d been a little more patient. MAJOR LEAGUE should have been enough of a clue there, and I am familiar with the terms FANTASY baseball and INSIDE baseball. I’d never heard of BACKYARD baseball, but I guess it makes sense.

Nor had I heard of a live college mascot before. I didn’t know it was a thing to use real animals as college sports mascots! What a world.

That’s all there is to it for today’s NYT Connections Sports Edition clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Sunday’s game if you need them.

Follow my blog for more coverage of NYT Connections Sports Edition, the regular version of Connections and other word games, and even occasional video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play NYT Connections Sports Edition would be appreciated too. You can also read the weekend editions of my Connections column at my newsletter, Pastimes.