What high school makes money from their sports programs? Even in basketball or football-obsessed towns, I doubt the ticket sales and concessions revenue from home games would even cover the coaches' salaries, transportation to away games, and uniforms. Most schools near me have players sell candy or coupon books to pay for their teams' expenses.
It's not revenue. I wasn't in the US. People sink money into high performance athletes. They lose money. In Australia only the AFL and Rugby League make much money. That is also only at the high levels.
There are places in Australia, such as Sydney, that have a network of selective high schools for kids who do well. But outside of Sydney it's much weaker.
There is more effort put into kids who are not doing well at school to improve their performance than in getting the most from kids who can do well. Perhaps it makes sense.
Sports only make money at the point of the most elite college programs, usually mainly its the football or basketball program that subsidizes the rest of the athletic program.
I think its more you become aware of where you stand fast. You go to meets or games of a bunch of different schools and see who is literally the best in the area. You go to state competitions and see who is best in the entire state. And then there are nationals where you see who is best in the entire nation. Throughout this your stats are posted online where you and college scouts can see them.
Academics have no comparison. We struggle to even compare grades because of grade inflation.
Probably more that lots of kids will try super hard to be good at sports. Being good at school carries a certain level of stigma and lots of kids who could be “smart” choose to slack instead.
Doing that made it clear to you that you might be good in your city but there were still kids who were way, way better than you were likely to be.
In contrast, smart kids often don't hit a 'bigger pool' until they get to university.
In some ways many places are better at handling kids who are good at a sport than they are kids who are good at school.