Looking for NYT Connections Sports Edition today? These are the hints and answers for May 1, 2026. If you want a nudge without spoilers, start with the four clues below; the full categories and word groups follow after a warning.
Hints for May 1, 2026
- Yellow: Mosey on down.
- Green: Area you can squeeze through.
- Blue: Fire it in there!
- Purple: Two words, blended.
Spoilers: May 1 answer categories and words
Stop here if you do not want the answers.
- Move at a Slow Pace: AMBLE, JOG, LOPE, TROT.
- Room to Run: GAP, HOLE, OPENING, SPACE.
- Baseball Pitches, with “Ball”: CURVE, FAST, FORK, KNUCKLE. Add “ball” to each word to make curveball, fastball, forkball, and knuckleball.
- Portmanteaus: ATHLEISURE, MOTOCROSS, PARASAILING, SLURVE.
How the Sports Edition puzzle works
Connections Sports Edition is a sports-focused game from The New York Times and The Athletic. Its instruction, quoted by Parade, is to “group sports terms that share a common thread.” The puzzle presents 16 words to sort into four groups of four. You can play online for free or in The Athletic app, according to Mashable.
Make sure you have the right May 1 puzzle
This answer key is for the May 1, 2026 Sports Edition puzzle. A separate May 1, 2025 puzzle is also reported, so check the year before using an answer key. Contemporary reports conflict on the 2026 puzzle number: Mashable and CNET/Yahoo identify it as #584, while Parade labels it #585. The number is omitted here rather than presented as settled.
Reveal the solution gradually
If you are solving and want to preserve as much of the challenge as possible, use the clues first, then reveal a category, and only then read the full word groups. The Word Finder provides a separate practice board with staged reveal controls; those are features of that site, not NYT game controls.
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Sources
- Parade: May 1, 2026 hints and answers
- Mashable via Yahoo Tech: May 1, 2026
- CNET via Yahoo Tech: May 1, 2026
- The Word Finder: May 1, 2026 practice board
- Parade: May 1, 2025 puzzle
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