If excessive sports and exercise were a problem on any large scale, I would advocate for regulation, too. My feeling however is that people rather tend to need incentives for exercising at all, so I’m not holding my breath on that one.
Freedom is not absolute if you are living as part of a society.
For example, if I compare the amount of advertisement that TV channels are allowed to show in Germany vs. in the US, I am certainly for regulation... (back when I still cared about television)
The same episode on german TV has three ad interruptions. One 5 minute one in the middle, a overlay ad about 5 minutes before the end and a zoom out during the credits showing ads to the side (the later two circumvent the normal limit of ads per hour and spacing requirements.)
Regulating length of ads is silly too. You can just purchase the show and watch it with no ads. Or don't watch the channel. Or watch different content.
Seems the above comments are generalizing to justify controlling media consumption. Regardless of which side regulation comes down on. I see a very slippery slope.
The slippery slope has been going down the opposite hill, actually, in America: It's amazing how much less rights a consumer has in the US compared to, again for example, in Germany.
The "well just don't do/consume/choose X then" argument is extremely shortsighted. If X is provided by commercial entities, then those commercial entities will, together, converge towards maximum profits with no regards for the consumer at all. Regulation is necessary as a counteractive force. A prime piece of evidence actually comes from your own post: "Don't watch the channel". Ok, I switched the channel on my cable box, now what? Ah, still the same.
You act as if the only media you can consume is via cable. There's virtually unlimited options in our age for media. The majority of it is free, not counting cost of internet.
X(media) is not provided by solely corporate entities. If someone wants to have a half hour ad(or infomercial) in their content, people will watch something else. It's shortsighted if there's a monopoly on X so your choices are limited. But that's the furthest thing from the truth in today's age in regards to media.
It's not really. The limited amount of adspace, about 10 minutes full screen and 4 or 5 minutes side, some banners, have greatly increased the value of ads on TV.
More expensive ads also means the ads are of much higher quality and less annoying than the US ads.
Buying the content is of course always an option but this is largely form an era before buying content was even an option or required extremely expensive VHS players.
Like you said, we live in a new era. I think the idea of that regulation feels antiquated with the near unlimited choices now.
Regardless, this is off topic. My extreme tl;dr - keep lawmakers grubby paws off my video games!