Will Dumbing Down Make History Degrees More Popular?

Will more college students enroll in history courses if they are easier to pass and on topics of current interest?  -- History of Football, for instance?

Sports history, and suchlike are fine with me but when they are Instead Of core history courses, then that's a problem.  Making history easier for the students by eliminating core requirements actually make the History Departments less popular -- by devaluing the discipline and the degree.

Here is an article, titled, "University of Washington Drops U.S. History Requirement -- For History Majors!" that also refers to the disturbing trend in other colleges.  http://dld.bz/fqE6Z

Quote: "One of the major reasons the humanities in general are in decline is the widespread (and entirely incorrect) assumption that history, literature, and classical disciplines teach nothing valuable and are a joke. By no longer requiring history majors to study the past of their own country, schools like GW seem determined to double down on making the humanities seem pointless, and therefore even more unpopular."

If "nothing valuable" means nothing that will advance a career path, then this may be how it is perceived.  The answer is to explain relevancy not to dumb down the discipline and hence, this major for a college degree