I think this is the most constructive idea so I'm posting my long reply to all the other suggestions under it. There isn't a color code but I can start labeling the headlines. The intent was never to trick anybody. If you don't like fantasy sports then you should skip it. If you do, and you're gonna end up trying daily fantasy anyway, let ours be the ad you click. They're paying us either way; the difference is whether you're playing against other MGoBloggers and that I try to pick a contest that's more fun and less something the people with algorithms are gaming. I am seriously, sorry for betraying you.

Why not just take donations instead of ads? If we start making levels of beveled guilt where you get something everyone else doesn't then that's great for the six-figure crowd to whom $100 or something isn't a big deal, and they don't treat it as a big deal.

But it's jolly rotten for anyone who can't afford that, which is a sizeable population. I've given to and been part of plenty of orgs that run on donations and they're huge sellouts. I can't tell you how many times I had to suck up to Mitch Albom while on the board of Volunteer Impact (and he still doesn't remember my name). The University of Michigan Athletic Department itself has to create special rooms and special meet and greets and throw names up everywhere to keep their donor base giving. It's annoying for the donors because they're constantly bombarded to give more and encouraged to play the game of one-upsmanship. It's annoying for the non-donors because they have to be bombarded with the names of people who can spend the price of their daughter's education on something like that. It's annoying for the coaches who have to smile and glad-hand these big ballers so they can go back to teaching kids to ball. The "let's let the rich pay for it so the rest can have it" model always becomes "let's let the rich have it how they want it and the rest can live in their J. Ira & Nicky Harris world."

But ads annoy. I'm Gen X; I've been inundated with ads since birth and rebeled against them too. But we also have to be realists: for half a century we got to watch TV for free because ads supported them. Michigan Replay would go to a break and you'd just have to sit there for several minutes watching GM parade their cars around before you could get back to the Brandy and Bo. The Buicks were on the same screen as the show. You changed the channel and instead of Bo there was a pickup driving over a pile of dirt and you dealt. It wasn't until cable bundles, and that they forced you to pay for the worst channel ever conceived by a non-fascist or communist nation to get the channels you actually wanted, that it got evil.

There's a transition that is going to have to happen for this to be worthwhile as a career for more than Brian. This blog started as internet obsessives who were just like "I'd rather write for basically free than not write." That was a STEAL if you read the site in 2007-2009, but if you saw Brian's apartment or Brian's car from that time (he still has the car) you'd recognize who you were stealing from. We don't want to ask readers to buy us new cars; we'd much rather earn the money to buy new cars by asking you to give a few seconds of eye-to-brain time to sponsors who won't screw you before you read 11,000 words De'Veon Smith runs.

It is now one of the premier sports sites on the internet, and is the premier site for any one team. We're not going to bring in the money the Freep does, but with far more readers than their sports section it would be nice if our staff writers could be paid like the Freep pays theirs, i.e. enough to have a middle class existence. I made less than anyone who reads this site except the students last year. I have a mortgage and a kid and a busted up driveway that I can't fix, and a widowed mom and grandma-in-law, and would like to have more kids. The model we're shooting for isn't to get rich of this--it's to be only as annoying as we have to be in order to go to bed at night without having to answer "when are you going to be done with this and get a REAL job?"

The best model for free content is to have a bunch of ads. The best way to have ads that have value to the sponsors is that they are not easily skipped. It would be highly unethical of me to take their money and then undercut it by waving readers away. What I can do though is portray them honestly, in our own words. What I can do is select them and know what they do, and only take money from those who are actually worth your while. I can put in the time and effort to translate what they want to say rather than slap them on ever lunch box. That blurs the line of content, but I also find it a more honest way of serving both the advertisers and readers.

I totally understand why Draft Kings is bringing this to the surface, because they're spending hundreds of millions right now to hit you in all the places you go for content where you can't actually talk to the dudes who sold it. I ask that you keep that in perspective. Find me another Draft Kings-sponsored media outlet who will explain why and how and from whom they're taking this money. ESPN's app makes you scroll past "Daily Fantasy" in the menu bar to get to "College Football." Grantland has videos where they're drafting entire teams. Our radio ad for Draft Kings starts: "Ace, this is an ad break in a sports-themed show, what does that mean? It means Draft Kings!"

As for Homesure Lending sponsoring UFR, that is a guy who is breaking even on his advertising and who only advertises in one place: MGoBlog. Matt is a friend going way back to when he and my brother played football together at Seaholm. He put his time in at a retail lender, saw every way they hose their clients, and built a business that works exactly not like that. He offered to sponsor UFR because he was sick of there not being UFRs when Michigan loses to Ohio State or in a bowl game. He came up with the idea of football eve because the night before the first game of the season he's so damn jittery his family has to just about throw him out of the house. He saved me more on my mortgage payment than his ads make for me.

Run down our list of advertisers. Matt. There's Kevin from the Alumni Association, who is best friends with Ira, and wants to send HTTV to every member, and who told me in his first converstation that his goal is to make Michigan Alumni association membership the best deal in the Big Ten. There's Taylor from Park n Party, who does what he does so he can live next door to the stadium and buy burger meat for Peg Canham's barbecues. There's the guy who wants to make Michigan watches, the guy who wants to make Brown Jug replicas, and the guy who wants his new coffee shop to be the place where people congregate to talk about how Beilein's frontcourt is up to 240/250 pounds each. There's TiqIQ, because they hired Jared Cooper who used to run the now-defunct Sporst Power Weekends. There's Stubbs, whose head dude is an MGoBlog fan, and their "ad" was basically to make Joe Pichey available. There's Reid and his boutique local law firm he has to fight the ways old people get screwed. There's Kenny Magee, who wanted to turn his collection of Michigan memorabelia into a shop so he can share it with people and spend his days talking to other Michigan obsessives. And of course our first and longest sponsor, Rishi from UGP, who if you were to try to build the kind of guy you want running a business from the ground up this is precisely what you'd come up with. He is also the benchmark I use to decide who we'll take money from.

Note that CokeZero, the Draft Kings of last year, is not on that list. They came to us with a dumptruck of money, but they also didn't get who you are or how to make something valuable to you. The previous year's big spender, CBS, is also not on that list. Coors isn't on that list. Volkswagon isn't on that list.

With DK I work with Larry Axelband, who has come on here and interacted any time there's been a problem with an account. He also made it $5 cheaper to get HTTV after the Kickstarter every year. He was the guy at his own daily fantasy site, and now he is one guy with a little compartment of a huge daily fantasy site. I would like to continue taking his money and making it worthwhile to him, because we are sports fans who like to play fantasy sports, and even my threadbare shirt is impossible to lose betting $3 on a team I've assembled that has a very small chance of winning. Drafting the team is the fun part anyway. If you're down with all this, seriously, I am very open to suggestions of how I can make it not suck.

Thank you for the feedback. The lines are open.