I've gathered that the situation in every country revolves around the available facilities/venues for sport, which is downstream of budgets and financing: in th

I've gathered that the situation in every country revolves around the available facilities/venues for sport, which is downstream of budgets and financing: in the US the majority of the divergence starts around high school level, with better-funded districts and private schools sometimes boasting rather spectacular facilities; since every US state sets their own education policies, there can be huge variance in what's available even going between different parts of California, let alone going to another state. At university level the "new gym" or "new stadium" is a common method of patronage, creating a snowball effect of a campus having really nice facilities and a large student population, so not only can they host athletics for the regular student body, they can also field an elite team by putting a little more into the scholarships and coaching budget. But the way in which this differs from other places is that access is often impacted by US urban sprawl conditions. In Japan, for example, middle school and high school athletes will use all the major urban venues, just as is depicted in manga and anime, because it's reasonable to get there by transit. So sports are supported by better utilization of the facilities across the entire local population. In contrast the US tends to have talent clustering in specialized cities: for example, all the serious tennis players go to Florida at some point. And that means there's a very substantial jump in pressure and selectivity when you go into the biggest competitive sports, and just about everyone at NCAA Division I level is intending to - or their parents groomed them to - go pro, and had it in mind from long before they got the scholarship. They allocate their day around the sport, and can't have an ordinary life. But there are always options to participate in lower divisions, intramural or other leagues with lower stakes as well, and those usually have to scrape around for budget, but can sometimes draft in the wind of an elite program.