Dear ESPN.com: Please Stop Selling Your Dignity

ESPN.com, has it really come to this?

Your front page was already a minefield of banner ads, roll-overs, and unsolicited video spots. Visitors who dared move their mice were already at risk of obscure content and links behind full-screen pitches for Ford. The gulf between your scores ticker and your lead photo has widened steadily as you've peddled the space to anyone who will buy.

And now, you've thrown every convention of design to the wind. You've auctioned off the slot next to your lead story to advertisers—you know, the one where you used to put silly things like your top headlines—and dropped the rest of the day's news down into a garbled five-deep, three-across grid of text.

Classy.

If your designers have any attachment to aesthetics, they must be having a fit. Forget the navigation nightmare—slapping up a pair of light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-white Apple ads above and alongside your top news item is just plain ugly.

And your writers can't be thrilled that the headlines that lead to their work are now about as appealing and accessible as the print on a supermarket receipt.

Half of your content is now buried so far down the front page, Jacques Cousteau would have called it quits before he got to the featured comment. I tried to browse your "Inside ESPN" lineup and got the bends before I made it.

Listen, we get it; you're hard up for cash. Even the "Worldwide Leader" isn't immune to the current economic climate, and those high-profile ads command top dollar.

But there has to be a more elegant solution. In terms of visual appeal, your Web site now ranks somewhere between the New York Post and Craigslist.

That's fine for a two-bit blogger or fanboy team site. It's downright embarrassing for the top sports journalism outlet in the media landscape.

Find another way to make the money. Sell ads in the margins. Let companies sponsor Rick Reilly's columns or shill products in Bill Simmons' mailbags. Just strong-arm Chris Berman into retirement.

I don't care how you fix it, ESPN.com. Just fix it. I want my headlines back. I want a front page that looks like a news source, not a coupon book.

Because if you compromise your product for a quick buck, all the advertising revenue on the Web won't buy back your credibility.