I sort of agree with you on the idea but top flight soccer teams are a bad example. That requires fans / high population density and then investment from a grou

I sort of agree with you on the idea but top flight soccer teams are a bad example. That requires fans / high population density and then investment from a group into paying and attracting players. West German is much more dense. You’d also have to look at the distribution of top flight teams when Germany was separated, which was probably still population density skewed.