As you have without doubt noticed, DRaysBay and other SB Nation sites have seen an influx of additional advertising as part of a new ad agreement signed by network superiors several months ago with a company called Federated. This will, unfortunately, mean more ads on DRaysBay than you have been accustomed to (which, thanks to our outstanding popularity, has been zero).
For the foreseeable future, the placement of future ads appears to be concentrated to the space on the entry link page between the body of text in a story and the comments, and of course the unnecessarily huge banner that greets you at the top of the page. Based on the information that has been relayed to me, those are the only two places in which the ad agreement will be effecting us.
Now before you complain, let me just say that I echo each and every one of your sentiments. I agree that the placement of this new advertising is very inappropriate, and I also feel that the flashiness and appearance of the new ads are also very unattractive. It pains me just as much as it does you to open up the web browser and be greeted by some hulking ad for FAO Schwartz or Panasonic. I do not approve of the placement and would make a great stink about it to network superiors if not for their assurances that the ad placement and size are still being tweaked as we speak.
So I will repeat, this is not a permanent situation, it is an ongoing thing, I am as impatient with it as you are, but in exchange for the space provided here and all the excellent services that SBN renders upon us unwashed writers, putting up with this for awhile is the least we can do.
If the advertising presence continues to be an annoyance with no sign of improvement, that is the point at which I will begin to start raising doubts, but for the network and our team here at DRB, I ask that you just bear with us for a few days as we collectively sort through these issues.
My sincere thanks for your understanding at this most difficult time to be a DRaysBay reader, I appreciate your patience.
Update [2006-11-7 18:43:32 by Patrick Kennedy]: Based on my own experiences with the new ads, they seem to appear inconsistently at different areas of the site at different positions at different times. This must have something to do with the tweaking, so please do expect some odd ads to be popping up in weird places for the next few days as we try to work this into a routine.