We don’t fund sports for shit.

That’s wrong. A big part of the reason why the US dominates in women’s sports generally is because our higher education funding system is based on a bedrock legal principle from Title IX that schools must spend as much on women as they do on men, including in extracurricular activities like sports. So as a result, with college football being a men’s only sport that raises a ton of revenue, a majority of our universities robustly fund women’s sports programs in a large number of sports.

Plus the US has a relatively unique culture of youth sports associated with their school, sponsored by the schools and their funding.

So we do fund a lot of youth and amateur (and semi professional) sports, indirectly through schools at various levels, including through whatever government subsidies and policies affect those schools.