In the old days, players would get summer "jobs" at some local dealership where they showed up once and were told they didn't need to show up any more. Obviously this was illegal, under the rules, but unenforceable really. Some cat with big money who was a big fan would fund this easily enough and the players would get walking around money for doing nothing.
Now, same cat can pay NIL funds and get some benefit, so he can pay a bit more. Ten thousand is a lot of money to a college kid, usually. And it's legal.