Wordle is owned by The New York Times (the United States, NYSE: NYT), which acquired the brand on 31 January 2022.[1][2][3] Wordle was founded in 2021 in the United Kingdom and was independent until 2022.
Wordle was written by a Welsh software engineer for his partner and released free with no advertising in 2021. The New York Times bought it in 2022 for a price in the low seven figures, and it now anchors a games subscription.
How often The New York Times names Wordle in its annual report
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central. The brand is named less often than it was three years earlier.
The New York Times is a publicly listed company headquartered in New York, New York, United States, founded in 1851. Brandtree records 4 brands under its control, and it is listed as NYSE: NYT.
The New York Times has published since 1851 and is one of the few newspapers to have made the transition to digital subscriptions successfully, with more than ten million of them. It is still controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family through a dual share structure.
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 552 brands that began in the United Kingdom.
291 of them (53%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country, Wordle among them.
The New York Times Company bought Wordle from its creator Josh Wardle, months after the daily word game had become a global habit shared through grids of coloured squares. The Times has never disclosed the price. The game joined the Games portfolio alongside the Crossword and Spelling Bee, and the company keeps it free, treating it as a way to build an audience it can convert to subscriptions later.
The parent company of Wordle is The New York Times, a publicly listed company headquartered in the United States.
Is Wordle British or American?
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Wordle originated in the United Kingdom in 2021, but it is owned today by The New York Times, which is headquartered in the United States. So Wordle is a British-origin brand under American ownership.
When did The New York Times buy Wordle?
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The New York Times completed its acquisition of Wordle on 31 January 2022. The price was not disclosed.
Who owned Wordle before The New York Times?
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Wordle was an independent company from its founding in 2021 until The New York Times acquired it in 2022.
Is Wordle still owned by The New York Times?
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Yes. As of 16 September 2026, Wordle is still owned by The New York Times. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Sources (3) & corrections
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
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