I'm one of the odd ones. I'm a big proponent of sponsor content and it is by far the best way to promote their sites. It's easier to sell lemonade with samples of lemondade than samples of orange juice. The key is too find smaller to mid-sized or newer programs whose content has not been overused. Everyone starting out seems to hover toward the big names. I consider that to be a mistake. I don't have any suggestions (cough, cough, see sig) because I haven't been building sites for quite awhile, but you could start
HERE and just wander around a bit.