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Our sports culture in the US is unlike any other country in the world and so comparing it to other countries is a pointless endeavor.

In fact pretty much all schools in the US all the way down to the smallest college field sports teams because it’s essential in advertising and marketing the school and recruiting students (either by recruiting students who are familiar with and fans of the sports team and the larger schools or by recruiting students who still want to compete in organized sports for the smaller schools)

Sports coaches are often compensated the most and athletes often get the most valuable scholarships because they generate the most marketing and advertising value and in cases of the highest level teams, make TV revenue back for the university.

If you want to put your complaints somewhere, complain about how public universities have to compete with each other for lucrative out of state and international students to meet their budgets because they are underfunded from the government.

Australian universities have sports. I suspect all universities have sports. The difference is outside the US sport is for the participants and is watched by the participants' families. Our youth football doesn't draw a crowd, people favour footy played by adults

But culturally, in the US, sports are how (a plurality of) people fraternize. Even our most prestigious universities, like the world-famous Harvard, has a football team.