- European agency Prodigy will focus on growing its North American operations
- Prodigy's CEO Jérôme Coupez compared VALORANT's popularity in America and CS: GO's popularity in Europe
- According to Coupez, NA will greatly benefit from more esports agencies offering their services
Prodigy Agency will be expanding its operations in North America to better serve its members and benefit from VALORANT's rising popularity.
Prodigy's Envisioned Expansion
Prodigy Agency ranks as one of the biggest esports agencies worldwide. It is based in Toulouse, France but is fielding some substantial players in North America as well. With Riot's first-person shooter VALORANT on the rise there, Prodigy has set its sights on improving and expanding its operations in the “new world.” It envisions either Dallas or Los Angeles as its base.
Prodigy's goals are to better serve its members and clients in North America. That includes bettering the services across the board, including contract negotiations, marketing materials, finding sponsors, and even producing brand materials for their clients. As an example for the latter, Prodigy Agency had launched a custom merchandise collection for Team Liquid's Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom.
Prodigy Agency's CEO, Jérôme Coupez, is looking forward to supporting VARLORANT players. In an interview with Dot Esports, Coupez talked about the differences in reception between VALORANT and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive:
“CS: GO is really on the down-low while VALORANT is rising with the organizations investing. It was a challenge to find any viable destinations in North American for our CS: GO players, while for VALORANT, all the organizations are in and competing.”
Coupez further emphasized that in Europe, the situation is the contrary, with CS: GO still a staple and many people preferring it to VALORANT. Although Riot's shooter is growing there as well, it hasn't had nearly the same impact as in North America.
“Most of the top-tier players want to stay in CS: GO, and most of the teams are more stable right now because of COVID. Only the really underperforming teams are making big changes, whereas two years ago, there were a lot more roster moves,” the CEO added.
CS: GO's unwavering popularity in Europe is partially thanks to Team Vitality's influence. Team Vitality is the biggest French organization, with most of its players being Prodigy clients. The team fields Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, who is one of the best players out there. In fact, he is so liked that Team Vitality made sure to sign him up until 2024 with a contract that is fairly unorthodox in length.
Coupez' Noble Goal of Giving Players a Sense of Security
Coupez wants to make the trust between ZywOo and Team Vitality exemplary and strive for the same level of contract security in North America. According to Prodigy's CEO, contracts there don't provide players with that same sense of feeling safe and at home. Coupez hopes to change that.
“I think we should all drive to provide better support to our players: marketing, social media management, merchandising, day-to-day management. We want to be able to answer any questions or any needs a player could have,” the CEO explained.
He also elaborated that he hopes other people will see the benefit of those services, and new esports agencies will sprout.
“If the others start doing the same, it's more competition for us, but I think it's needed. We can't sign all the players,” Coupez humbly added.
Prodigy already represents some major names in North American esports, namely Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski from Team Liquid, Nicholas “nitr0” Cannella and Joshua “steel” Nissan from 100T, and Tyson “TenZ” Ngo from Sentinels.
Prodigy's goals of providing NA players with services and a welcoming attitude towards competition are noble. Furthermore, the agency is making a clever move as many veteran CS: GO players have been migrating to VALORANT.
