Newspapers have long offered games, from crossword puzzles to Sudoku challenges to word searches and more. The New York Times has gotten particularly into digital games over the last decade, adding originals The Mini Crossword, Spelling Bee, Letter Boxed, and Tiles to its signature crossword beginning in 2014. In 2022, the paper acquired Wordle, then later built Connections and Strands, helping solidify itself as a premiere gaming destination.
And now, The Athletic (which the Times acquired in January 2022) has launched its first daily game: Connections: Sports Edition.
Based on the standard Connections (which the Times says has tens of millions of daily players and was last year’s most-searched game on Google), each daily puzzle in Connections: Sports Edition provides players with a grid of 16 sports-related terms and asks players to group them into four groups of four with a maximum of four mistakes along the way. It can be done at a player’s leisure or with a timer for competitive purposes.
The Athletic has had Connections: Sports Edition in beta since last spring but officially launched it around the Super Bowl. Mark Cooper, The Athletic’s managing editor for news (and now also its puzzle editor), recently spoke to AA about the game. He said he got involved shortly after the idea of a sports version of Connections was dreamed up and thought that was an excellent combination.
“Obviously we’ve seen, I see it as a game player, just how much fun the flagship Connections game is. It’s how I start my morning every day. And I think we’ve seen kind of just how popular that game has become and how this format has really kind of resonated with a lot of game players.
“And I think that for us at The Athletic, the sports side of it complements it really well. Sports fans are competitive, they like to play games, there’s so many overlapping words and names and statistics that lend themselves to just building a bunch of sports game boards.”
This is awesome 👀👀👀
The other big game is HERE.
Introducing Connections: Sports Edition — a brand-new spin-off to test your sports knowledge.https://t.co/t1unS8cjPa
— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) February 9, 2025
As noted, games have often been featured in traditional print media offerings. But seeing digital media companies dive into games has been more unusual. Cooper said he thinks this game is a great way to bring subscribers extra value that complements everything The Athletic does.
“It really adds to the overall package that we’re hoping to give readers when they come to The Athletic. They already come to us for longform features and for breaking news and for everything in between. So I think offering this daily game that somebody can start their morning with before they read on their favorite team, or vice versa, I think it really kind of fits into the overall package that we’re giving readers.”
Cooper said the idea went through significant internal testing and a wider beta before this official launch, meaning he’s made almost 150 daily puzzles to date.
“I made five tester games at the very beginning, and they went pretty well. They seemed fairly fun to play. It felt like, ‘Okay, we’re kind of onto something here. Can I scale up five to 60?’ … And we used the last few months to evaluate, ‘Is this resonating with players? Is this something we want to continue doing?’ And I think we liked what we were getting. It seemed like people were enjoying the game.
“We have some internal testers who often play the games before they go out to say, ‘Hey, this is too hard, this is too easy, what if you think about this?’ And I learned over the course of this beta period what’s really worked and what doesn’t.”
The official launch has added new features, too. Cooper said the timer is a particularly cool one.
“One of the best parts about our launch is we’ve recently added the option to turn on a timer in Connections: Sports Edition,” he said. “I like that competitive component. I think it connects really well to sports fans and trying to beat each other.”
He thinks Connections: Sports Edition is sometimes boiling over into his reading.
“I now find myself even when I’m not making Connections, just grouping things into groups of four in ways that I never thought that I would. Sometimes I’ll be reading a story and I’ll see a term and then think, ‘Oh, that’s interesting, it could go with this one, this one, and this one.’ I’m always looking for words that have multiple meanings or can go into multiple places.”
On that front, Cooper said one of the favorite versatile terms he’s found is famed Boston Celtics head coach Red Auerbach.
“I realized Red Auerbach is such a perfect name for Connections because I can come up with four terms that follow the word red. Maybe it’s Red Sox, Red Wings, red card, Red Auerbach. And then I can also have a category that’s Popovich, Kerr, Spoelstra, title-winning coaches. And as a player, you have to kind of figure out, ‘Okay, where’s the pivot point in this game?’ So I find myself thinking about those things now just as an editor, as a reader, in a way I couldn’t have imagined.”
Games are receiving much more attention and serious scholarship these days, including how they can help people learn. Connections: Sports Edition isn’t specifically going for educational value, but Cooper said those who play the sports version may glean some things, and perhaps even more so than in the standard game.
“The flagship Connections is very much a word game. I think with the sports one, there’s a little bit more of a trivia component. I try to keep some of the elements of the original game. I think if you play the original game, the purple category often has some sort of wordplay to it, and I think we try to do that with Connections: Sports Edition as well.
“But I’ve also looked at having one category in there most days that maybe has a little bit more of a trivia component. And if you’re a player who doesn’t follow the NBA and maybe you can figure out the other three categories, and that’s the one that you just kind of get at the end, and you see, ‘Oh, these are four title-winning coaches, I’ve picked something up.’ I think that there is a little bit of if you can solve three categories, maybe the fourth one offers kind of a fact of the day for you.”
He said another advantage of the sports version is the ability to tie it into particular current sports moments.
“We’ve tied in a couple different game boards to events at the moment. With the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, we had some categories that were related to Ohio State and to Notre Dame. With big events like that, or the Super Bowl as another one, we can kind of ease into that moment, too. Maybe Super Bowl MVPs is a good category. And then you pick up facts there too.”
Cooper said that overall, he’s optimistic Connections: Sports Edition can be fun for players and encourage them to engage with The Athletic’s other content more.
“I think of games as a daily habit, as a fun change of pace at some point during your day. And a lot of what I hope Connections: Sports Edition does is create that fun. You spend two to five minutes every morning with your coffee solving this game, and then you come back, and when you solve the game, maybe you go deeper into the website and read a couple stories.
“It’s inside of The Pulse, our morning newsletter, every day. So I kind of like that idea of a player starting their day with The Pulse and then moving into Connections and then moving into the next thing and really getting a full slate of news and everything you need sports-wise. But then you also have this nice fun game where you can also share and hopefully compete with your friends.”
