While university sport certainly exists, the major differences are that i) they don't generate any revenue, and ii) student athletes don't receive any advantage in university admissions.

In the USA, only mens basketball and football typically generate revenue. Maybe in some areas baseball or hockey might. Those programs support the vast majority of athletes (track and field, swimming, soccer, lacrosse, tennis, volleyball, wrestling, etc. as well as all the women's teams) who are in programs that do not generate any revenue.

I would say hockey probably only does for the big hockey schools in the US. In other places, especially high school, hockey is a club sport so the players pay for everything. Which is the complete opposite of football.

It's not that they're not taken seriously, just that they're not in any way a requirement to be a professional player. To play cricket, aussie rules, rugby, hockey, netball and so on at the professional level doesn't require a feeder system of athletes from the tertiary education sector. Professional athletes also aren't introduced by sportscasters as 'name, college'.

Who knows, it might catch on. Other American sports oddities have, like that annoying singing of the national anthem before each match and providing a role for athletic women in professional sports by making them cheerleaders...