Sports crossword puzzle
Twelve clues from the world of sport: ball games, water, gloves, a very long race and the people and places around the game.
Curated by 
Esme Rook
·
Updated October 2026
Play it right here
12 clues to solve: 6 across and 6 down. Tap a square and type; tap it again to switch between across and down. Solved words lock in green.
Across
- 2. Official who enforces the rules during a match (7)
- 4. Sport where eleven players a side kick a ball into a net (6)
- 6. Sport where you score by shooting the ball through a hoop (10)
- 7. Water sport with strokes like freestyle and butterfly (8)
- 9. Sport of clubs, greens and eighteen holes (4)
- 10. Champions wear it around the neck: gold, silver or bronze (5)
Down
- 1. Racket sport played over a net; Wimbledon is its most famous event (6)
- 3. Long-distance running race of about 42 kilometers (8)
- 4. Large arena where matches are played in front of a crowd (7)
- 5. A group of players competing on the same side (4)
- 6. Combat sport with gloves, rounds and a ring (6)
- 8. What a striker scores when the ball crosses the line (4)
What does it cover?
Not just the sports themselves. Some answers are games you play, others are the race you train months for, the official you argue with, the thing you score and the arena you score it in. Those four are MARATHON, REFEREE, GOAL and STADIUM, and each one is clued by what it does.
BASKETBALL, the ten-letter gift
The longest answer is ten letters, and long answers are a gift in a crossword: once two or three crossings are in place there is usually only one word that fits. That word is BASKETBALL, and it crosses BOXING, TENNIS, TEAM and STADIUM. The shortest answers are GOLF, TEAM and GOAL, four letters each. A handy route starts with MEDAL, clued by gold, silver and bronze, because it hands a letter to GOAL, and GOAL in turn opens SWIMMING. From there STADIUM and the long ball game follow quickly.
For fans and weekend players
Anyone who watches or plays. The clues describe each sport by its rules and its icons, so you do not need to follow any particular league or season, and the puzzle will read the same in ten years. It sits in the middle of our difficulty range: harder than the animal crossword, friendlier than the science one. Wimbledon gets a mention in the TENNIS clue, and the MARATHON clue gives the distance of about 42 kilometers.
Print it before kickoff
Grab the free puzzle PDF above, print it in black and white, and keep the separate answer key PDF for the final whistle. Basketball fans can go deeper with the basketball crossword, and the sports word search covers many of the same games.
Same theme, different puzzle: Sports word search
