I wonder if there's a market for schools that specifically don't have a sports program. I suspect the atmosphere at such a place would be attractive to a large minority of prospective students.
In the US they don't have that. AFAIK, there's no "Green Bay Packers U-18s" football team that is integrated with the professional club and promotes young players. Baseball does have a farm team system called the Minor Leagues.
The NCAA which runs university athletics in the US managed to make a junior league feeding all the professional leagues in various sports. The progression for an American athlete is then to get a scholarship to play at some university, and then get drafted by a professional team once they finish.