It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

Even NIL could be creating TItle IX liability at Notre Dame and elsewhere.

ND football players getting $25K each, annually, via "NIL" while the only women's sport in which an entire roster is getting paid is basketball...that could be viewed one of two ways, it seems:
- an unequal opportunity provided by a booster party (more accurately defined as a 3rd party partner of ND's athletic department called FUND), and a potential Title IX violation, - OR _
- an equal opportunity to market one's own name, image, likeness for all student-athletes; CFB players are just simply more marketable and attract more NIL dollars (See: any and all data on TV viewership of CFB/women's sports, the fact the entire WNBA is only 40% the market size of ND football, and so on).

Obviously, I tend to lean towards the side of merit-based compensation and that Major CFB is a unique beast and a multi-billion dollar industry (and as such should be treated differently) while the other college sports are nothing like it and more in line with the extracurricular activities intended from the start.

That being said, not sure the courts will see it that way, as you say.