Sports Today brings the full solution to NYT Connections #1,127 for Sunday, July 12, 2026, with the four category themes and all 16 words laid out for players who wanted the day’s answers in one place. Tim Mulkerin’s puzzle-help writeup gives readers the clean finish they were looking for after working through the grid.
The yellow group is REPRODUCTIVE PART OF FRUIT: PIP, PIT, SEED and STONE. That set is the easiest to justify once you read it as a biology-and-language puzzle rather than a list of loose fruit words. STONE fits the same idea as PIT when used for a peach, while the other three are familiar names for the same part.
The green group, BIT OF FRUIT-FLAVORED CANDY, is DOT, NERD, RUNT and SPREE. Each one names a small candy and each can be read as a bite-sized piece of something sweet, which is why the grouping works even before the game reveals the label. The blue set is VERBS IN A COLLEGE LIFE SLOGAN: PARTY, REPEAT, SLEEP and STUDY. That one depends on the pattern of actions, not on any hidden definition. The words read like commands or routines, and the shared structure is what pulls them together.
The purple group, STARTS OF U.S. CAPITALS, is where the puzzle turns trickier: DEN, MAD, PHO and SAC. The first three are easier to spot as beginnings of capital names, but PHO can look like soup at first glance. Here it is not the dish; it is an abbreviated place name, which is what makes the set work. Once that is clear, the category stops feeling random and starts reading like a simple initials game.
Mulkerin, a freelance writer, editor and social media manager who has worked in digital media and the tech world since 2016, is currently pursuing a master’s degree in communicative sciences and disorders from New York University and lives in Brooklyn, New York. That background is part of why the puzzle page arrives in a brisk, utility-first voice: it is meant to help readers finish today’s game, then move on.
The timing matters because Connections is a daily puzzle, and July 12, 2026 is the only day this set exists. Players looking up sports today may find the page because they want the answer key now, not later, and the same page also points readers toward hints for Wordle and Strands and tells them to bookmark the page for future Connections help. The next puzzle is not identified here, which leaves the only real task in front of the player exactly where it belongs: solve the grid, or check the groupings and start fresh tomorrow.
