The last time his inbox was as desirable a destination as it is today, West Virginia athletic director Shane Lyons was searching for a new football coach and absorbing advice from armchair administrators. The armchairs are more aggrieved this time, though, as fans of the Mountaineers come to grips with watching their teams on ESPN+'s Big 12 Now.

WVU makes its debut on ESPN's streaming platform and the conference's designated channel in Saturday's 4:30 p.m. game at Kansas. Meanwhile, Lyons is sorting through reactions, and WVU drafted a universal response to send back to the folks who are reaching out for one reason or another about this situation.

"There aren't as many," Lyons told 247Sports. "We're not responding to every individual situation, either."

An important part of understanding this seemingly sudden arrangement between the conference and the network is that it isn't that sudden. The Big 12 and ESPN agreed to take their television partnership to ESPN+ back in April, and that, of course, came after considerable planning. ESPN paid the Big 12 a large sum of money for the rights to televise the conference's football championship game this year and in 2021 and 2023. Those lucrative games were available and unclaimed after Fox decided to pass. Big 12 Now was created and included in the transaction along the way, and the conference attempted to explain the plan in a press release:

An exclusive regular-season football game each season from each participating school, as well as any spring football games;

All regular season and exhibition men’s basketball games not distributed on ESPN’s linear networks (expected to be upwards of 75 games per year);

Women’s basketball and other conference sports such as volleyball, soccer, wrestling, softball, baseball and more;

Select Big 12 Conference championship events and original content.

That would seem to suggest that non-conference football and men's basketball games that are not televised by Fox or ESPN networks could go to the new platform. Significant non-conference games, like WVU vs. N.C. State, which was televised last week on FS1, and all conference games would be off limits.

Yet WVU and Kansas are on ESPN+ tomorrow and Kansas State and Oklahoma State play there next week. Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Baylor were originally slated to have their events included in programming plans this season, meaning any of them could now have a home football game this season on ESPN+. WVU, Iowa State, TCU and Texas Tech won't have any of their home football games on ESPN+ until next season because they were and still are part of the 2020-21 rollout. Texas and Oklahoma are excluded.

But men's basketball schedules were unveiled Wednesday, and WVU has five Big 12 games, including both against Kansas, on ESPN+. Every Big 12 school will play between two and six games on the subscription platform, perhaps because they were cleverly "not distributed on ESPN's linear networks." Lyons said when the networks picked football games for this week, ESPN selected WVU vs. Kansas and chose to put it on ESPN+ as opposed to a "linear" option.

Lyons said "nothing has changed" and this was the plan from the beginning.

"Maybe it wasn't as clear as it could have been, but it was understood we were going to roll it out this way this year," he said.

Lyons said this is the final year that the small number of non-conference football and men's basketball games will be televised on AT&T Sports as part of WVU's multimedia rights agreement. Those games will also go to ESPN+ in the future. Lyons said WVU and Learfield/IMG College are still resolving their contract, which had contained the rights to those games, will maintain radio and marketing rights and goes through the 2024-25 year.

The Mountaineers are doing what they can to address the unknowns and the apprehension that comes with adding a $4.99 monthly subscription which is currently available with a free 30-day trial. The athletic department website published a handy FAQ guide, which was then shared on social media. Some emails to Lyons received this reply:

The decision to partner with ESPN on the Big 12 Now on ESPN+ digital platform was made in an effort to strategically position the Big 12 for what the future of TV is going to look like. We understand this is a significant change for fans who are accustomed to accessing these broadcasts through the traditional linear distribution model of their cable and satellite providers. The growing number of cord-cutters, those who have canceled their traditional pay-tv service, (reportedly more than 30 million consumers as of 2018) and cord-nevers, adults who have never subscribed to pay-tv service (an additional 31 million potential viewers) is the reason having a presence in the digital space is important for the league. The industry projects the numbers for both of these groups will continue to grow at a fast pace which is why the major broadcasters like ABC and NBC have launched their own streaming services recently, Disney+ (ABC) and Peacock (NBC).

With all that being said, we understand the early days of this transition are going to create concerns amongst the fan bases of the Big 12 schools. The belief is this will be short-term pain that will result in long-term gain for the conference on the TV side of things which will lead to a healthier, stronger conference long-term. Again, I understand your concern and frustration but hope the information I provided will help you better understand the reasons behind the decision to partner with ESPN on the Big 12 Now on ESPN+ digital platform.

Lyons said Internet quality in West Virginia "was talked about" and that the state is not unique in its concerns, but that hurdle is also part of this experience.

"It's not just the hollers of West Virginia. It's other rural areas, I'm sure, throughout the country that have difficulty with broadband and bandwidth," he said. "We're certainly aware of that, but this was also a matter of evolving and understanding, when compared to years ago, that people had trouble getting cable and ultimately they had the rabbit ears up on the house and couldn't get ESPN when it started. But things continued to evolve to where we are now. We think this is the future of television. I don't think we're ever going to see that cable's totally gone away, but what we are seeing is that there's a large segment of our audiences that are no longer with traditional cable."