They're maybe trying to use the same law that Locast[1] is: there's a specific carve-out in the law about rebroadcasting for nonprofits: "an exception in U.S. copyright law (17 U.S.C. § 111) for retransmission of television programming by non-profits without charge or any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage (besides the costs needed to cover the operations and maintenance of the retransmitter), which was originally intended to cover over-the-air translator stations" [2]
That's not commercial advantage as colloquially known. Commercial advantage would roughly translate to direct profit taking.
And they aren't doing it to become world renowned for their rebroadcasting, they're doing research and publishing results first and foremost. Big difference. Unless you want to start couching every type of university research as commercial advantage now, which seems pretty harmful to the university research landscape to me.
[1] https://www.locast.org
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locast#Legal_challenge