Fully anecdotal, but one of my 6th form rugby teammates went to watch a high school american football game, and said they were comparably as good as we were. Only difference is they filled a stadium and we'd get 3 dads on the sideline.
Junior teams for professional clubs do very much pay attention to school leagues and youth club rugby for players to 'scoop up'.
Seems like a purely cultural difference around going to watch lower level matches to me, rather than the player skill and career trajectory being different.
Interesting to see it as being freed from a constraint rather than a crutch that viewers can be relied upon to watch all episodes. IMO writing satisfying one episode arc that also makes up part of a wider arc is much more difficult, and many shows now really have just a single arc that only gets good in the last third, making it essentially a 6-8 hour movie rather than an episodic show.