Connections Quiz Solutions and Answers: Sports Edition June 19, 2026

Need help with the Connections: Today's Sports Edition competition? You have come to the right place. Welcome to Connections: Sports Edition, where you can collect evidence and discuss (and share) results.

A quick announcement before we continue: At the bottom of this article you'll find the answers — and hints — for each of the four categories. So if you want to solve the puzzle without hints, we recommend playing before continuing. You can access today's game here. And when you're done, also try our Connections: Football Edition - which has been specially designed for this summer's World Cup - for an extra challenge.

Difficulty of today's game No. 634: 3.5 out of 5.

Connections Hints: Sports Edition for June 19, 2026. Scroll down for one of the answers in each of the four categories.

Main content:

• Yellow: Part of a race: lap, stage, section, stage
• Green: Show: show, theatre, hot dog, fake show
• Blue: American football players: Balogun, Dest, Ream, Scully
• Purple: _____ Bell: Bar, Cool Baba, Kettle, Victory

What is Connections: Sports Edition? Connections: Sports Edition is The Athletic's first game of its kind, a daily puzzle designed for players to find connections between 16 words on the game board. The goal of the game is to group words or items into four groups of four based on commonalities within each group as quickly as possible. Find the combinations without making four mistakes. Each puzzle has exactly one solution, so watch out for words or items that seem to belong to multiple categories!

Examples of categories:

• Sports ____: fan, car, bar, radio
• US Summer Olympians: Biles, Phelps, Ledecky, Lyles

Each group of categories is assigned a color, revealed as the puzzle is solved, ranging from easy (yellow) to medium (green) to hard (blue) to cunning (purple).

Who creates puzzles for Connections: Sports Edition? This is me! My name is Mark Cooper, I create Connections: Sports Edition and serve as the managing editor for college sports here at The Athletic. I was previously managing editor of breaking news at The Athletic. The next puzzle will be available at midnight in your time zone. Thanks for playing – and share your results in the comments!