Finally, I agree that being an athlete ain't all its cracked up to be. One of my favorite things about my wife is that she had no idea what was going on with the sports stuff because she was a recent immigrant. With my kids, I will not be emphasizing sports. There is no need to wrap your identity into something that only has meaning as a metaphor for the rest of life.
Hopefully you get a choice in the matter. Kids have their own ways of deciding what's important to them, but as a parent I find all I can decide is what I do or don't spend money on.
I was born State-side, left at age 2 when my family moved, and didn't move back until my twenties. (I like to call myself an "anchor baby" just to piss people off). One of the major differences I noticed about life State-side is the obsession with sports, particularly school sports, even at the high school level. The culture is pretty much saturated with it. Some areas are worse than others, but overall sports are taken seriously at an extremely young age.
Has anyone noticed how some amateur sports have been built into mini-industries? People actually make a good living providing gear, coaching, venues, private instruction, team paraphernalia, and competition opportunities, if enough other people pay for the privilege of competing. The gold standard appears to be getting a sport into a school. Once it's established, parents and athletic departments unconsciously accept the "need" to raise money for whatever facilities, gear, tournament fees, and other related participation expenses exist. Suddenly, a sport that used to cost relatively little suddenly costs a whole lot.
Kids from the favela in Rio kick soccer balls around all the time, and some of them really do live the rags-to-riches story and go pro. They appear to do it without a soccer mom spending $18k a year on them. There's some kind of tryout system.