I created a college basketball board game a few years ago to play by myself, or with a few buddies, for fun. Never had any intention of selling the game, just something for for me to pass the time. Well, I've expanded and added more to the game over the past couple years and one of my buddies keeps saying I need to crowdfund the game to get it produced. I feel like the NCAA licensing would be outrageous and I'd have to sell a ton of copies to even come close to making a profit. Now my game doesn't use/need the team logos, but would probably need to use the university names (example: Duke, USC, Ohio State, UConn, etc.) and conference names (example: Big Ten, Big 12, etc.).
At this point I'm just looking to get a very very rough estimate on licensing cost for something like this for 365 current Division 1 basketball programs and 32 conferences to see if this would even be worth looking into further.
Another friend said if the licensing fee is too high, I should just pitch the game to some already established board game companies and have them buy the rights to the game from me and then they can produce it/sell it themselves. Thoughts?