Need help with today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle? You’ve come to the right place.

Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition Coach — a spot to gather clues and discuss (and share) scores.

A quick public service announcement before we continue: The bottom of this article includes the answers — and hints — for the four categories. So if you want to solve the board hint-free, we recommend you play before continuing.

You can access today’s game here. And when you’re done, try out our limited-edition Connections: Soccer Edition — special for this summer’s World Cup — for an extra challenge.

Today’s difficulty

Game No. 642’s difficulty: 2.5 out of 5

Connections: Sports Edition hints for June 27, 2026

Scroll below for one answer in each of the four categories.

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Yellow: LEGEND

Green: DENVER

Blue: CASH

Purple: MAYER

Connections: Sports Edition answers for June 27, 2026

Scroll below for the full answers to each of the four categories.

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Yellow

A revered star: GREAT, ICON, LEGEND, SUPERSTAR

Green

Last four NBA champions: BOSTON, DENVER, NEW YORK, OKLAHOMA CITY

Blue

WNBA players in the Basketball Hall of Fame: CASH, CATCHINGS, LESLIE, WHALEN

Purple

Starts with an NFL starting QB: JACKSONVILLE, MAYER, WILLIAMSPORT, YOUNGSTER

What is Connections: Sports Edition?

Connections: Sports Edition is The Athletic’s first-ever game, a daily puzzle designed for players to find connections between 16 words on the game board.

The game’s objective is to group words or objects into four groups of four based on commonalities within each group as quickly as possible. Find the groups without making four mistakes. Each puzzle has exactly one solution, so watch out for words or items that seem to belong to multiple categories!

Category examples:
Sports ____ : Fan, Car, Bar, Radio
U.S. Summer Olympians: Biles, Phelps, Ledecky, Lyles

Each category group is assigned a color, revealed as you solve, ranging from straightforward (yellow) to medium (green) to challenging (blue) to tricky (purple).

Who creates the puzzles for Connections: Sports Edition?

That’s me! My name is Mark Cooper, and I create Connections: Sports Edition and work as a managing editor for college sports here at The Athletic. I was previously The Athletic’s managing editor for breaking news.

The next puzzle will be available at midnight in your time zone. Thanks for playing — and share your scores in the comments!

Nobody puts Mr. Met in the corner.

The New York Mets fired manager Carlos Mendoza on Friday, casting a pall over Citi Field as the Philadelphia Phillies arrived amid the nadir of a miserable Mets season. But that didn’t stop the team’s mascot from busting a move, even as longtime SNY sideline reporter Steve Gelbs delivered a somber live report chronicling the reasons for the skipper’s demise.

Before the Mets’ 2-1 loss to the Phillies, the team’s seventh straight defeat, Gelbs stood on the field eulogizing Mendoza’s tenure in the Mets’ dugout.

Mr. Met couldn’t have been more oblivious to the misery. The mascot gyrated wildly behind Gelbs, waving his arms to the music blaring in the background, all while bobbing his comically oversized baseball for a head back and forth as if the Mets had just won the pennant.

Oh my god this clip is all-time 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/c9WpWhHXOe

— AT (@BaseballWRLD_) June 26, 2026

Except Gelbs was discussing the firing of the man who had led the Mets to a 34-47 record this season, good for last in the National League East.

Mendoza took over in 2024 and immediately led New York to the NLCS, where they lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games. In 2025, the Mets started 62-44 but finished 83-79 and missed the playoffs. Then they came stuttering out of the gates in 2026, leading to Mendoza’s dismissal.

Perhaps Mr. Met did hear Gelbs discussing Mendoza being fired, and his reaction was purposeful and in celebration of a new dawn for Mets baseball.

Or maybe not. We’ll likely never know, since Mr. Met never utters a word.

Still, the unseemly breach in etiquette paled in comparison to what remains the mascot’s most infamous moment, when cellphone video in 2017 caught Mr. Met giving fans the finger. Ever so passionate.

“We apologize for the inappropriate action of this employee,” the Mets said in a statement at the time. “We do not condone this type of behavior. We are dealing with this matter internally.”

A team official told The Associated Press at the time that the person who worked as the mascot that day would never do so again.

So while it was a different face inside the giant smiling baseball head of Mr. Met on Friday, they still failed to read the room.