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. 667’s difficulty: 2.5 out of 5

Connections: Sports Edition hints for July 22, 2026

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

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Yellow: POND

Green: FIGHTER

Blue: FLATS

Purple: TIE

Connections: Sports Edition answers for July 22, 2026

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

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Yellow

Places where an errant golf shot lands: BUNKER, OUT OF BOUNDS, POND, ROUGH

Green

Sports films, with “the”: FIGHTER, KARATE KID, NATURAL, WATERBOY

Blue

College football stadiums, with “the”: BIG HOUSE, FLATS, HORSESHOE, SWAMP

Purple

_____ break: FAST, HYDRATION, SERVICE, TIE

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!

In a move that would have been unthinkable a short time ago, pioneering New York City sports-radio station WFAN and 41 other stations owned by Audacy, one of the nation’s leading audio and radio companies, will be available on SiriusXM, sources briefed on the deal told The Athletic.

The move seemingly ends a long-standing rivalry between SiriusXM and terrestrial radio: In 2008, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo left his legendary partnership with Mike Francesa on WFAN, breaking up “Mike & the Mad Dog” to start his own channel, “Mad Dog Sports Radio” on SiriusXM. Russo followed legendary morning radio host Howard Stern, who left traditional radio for an exclusive show on SiriusXM that he launched in 2006.

Now, listeners can hear Mad Dog and his cohorts, as well as WFAN, without switching platforms.

The SiriusXM-Audacy agreement is for sports and news stations around the country, encapsulating 42 in total in 29 markets. The 23 sports-radio stations include WIP in Philadelphia, WEEI in Boston, The Score in Chicago and The GAME in San Francisco.

Access is expected to begin Sept. 1.

Audacy is receiving a licensing fee in the deal. The exact terms are unknown. SiriusXM is able to sell its own ads when listeners tune into the local radio stations on its platforms.

SiriusXM is the home of most live sports, from the NFL to the NBA to MLB to the NHL to college sports. Besides Mad Dog, it offers sports specific channels on the NFL and other sports. The partnership now fills a longtime gap in SiriusXM’s inventory, which was local sports programming.

All Audacy stations will be available on the SiriusXM app, while some, including WFAN, will be available through in vehicles as well. The Audacy stations will still be accessible on all of its current platforms, including radios, the Audacy app and connected-home devices, like Amazon’s Alexa.

As part of the sharing agreement, SiriusXM personalities, like Russo, may appear as cross-promotional guests on WFAN and other Audacy stations. Top radio personalities are expected to show up on SiriusXM as guests as well.