That last sentence is true for every single country I've ever lived in or spent time in. Wether it's highly paid footballers, cricket players, Starcraft players, or some other form of celebrity. Don't pin that as anything remotely close to uniquely American.
But everything is a matter of degree, and America's got quite a severe degree of antiintellectualism. For example, in most countries, if top scientists say the globe is warming because of CO2 emissions, people simply accept it and start trying to find ways to lower their CO2 emissions. In America, whole organized fronts start claiming that the scientific method is a conspiracy concocted to bring certain politicians to power.
