...that work they do for the university.

NIL is supposed to be about them being allowed to work and earn outside of their commitment to the university.

Yeah - we all know that the reason they are getting the NIL opportunities (most of them anyway) has everything to do with people wanting them to play their sport at a specific university. But the original fight was about people like Olivia Dunne, who had millions of followers on social media and had the ability to make cash as a product spokesperson and via sponsorships, being allowed to benefit from her own name, image, and likeness.

Collectives coming up with random reasons to compensate players (and in particular, recruits) in order to pay them is the unintended consequence of letting people who either began with a following or gained one through their play earn something from their NIL.

So even having the universities involved in it is a little bit of a weird thing - but it's hard to imagine them not being involved.