Maybe I'm overly optimistic but it's such a low amount that maybe NYT doesn't really need to recuperate much. Just attaching their brand to it and posting a message on it every month or two is already worth it for them.
Hell, I wouldn't be _too_ surprised if just having the existing 1m+ Wordle user base visit the NYTimes website most days just to play, and the extra page views and potential other pages users list once they there - might be worth "low seven figures" to them all on it's own. Just redirecting the world site/page to nytimes.com/wordle and wrapping their header/footer/ads around it might well add several million in value to them over a year or two...
(No guarantee that it'll actually last that long with that many users, but it might go the other way too, with NYTimes brand behind it it might double or 10x its DAU as well?)
