(Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports)

To get WNBA guard Skylar Diggins – then a senior at Notre Dame – to sign with Roc Nation Sports, all it took was a phone call.

From Jay Z, of course.

On her cell phone.

“We just talked for 20 minutes,” she said. “He was the most down-to-earth guy ever … it didn’t take a lot. He didn’t have to convince me. Everything he touches turns to gold and it was a lot of talk about Roc Nation and him joining the sports agency sector.

“Like I said how do you say no to that?”

It seemed like a perfect fit from the start: Diggins, an attractive and popular player who willed her team to three Final Fours. And a new sports agency that seemed to market itself on Jay Z’s popularity.

From the beginning, Roc Nation marketed itself as a boutique sports agency, choosing only athletes they felt they could be successful with and were highly marketable. But a WNBA player?

“I was in [Jay Z]’s office and ESPN comes on and she was playing or something — her name just came up,” said Roc Nation Sports president Juan Perez. “And me and Jay looked at each other and were like ‘hey we need a girl in our company’ and she fits what we look for in an athlete and we found her number and made a call.”

Those things, according to Perez: “She was good in college, an elite player. She’s beautiful, good-looking and has a strong personality.”

Roc Nation Sports reached its first anniversary as a sports agency this week. Along with Diggins it has signed six athletes: Kevin Durant, Robinson Cano, Geno Smith, Hakeem Nicks, C.C. Sabathia and Victor Cruz. The agency made a splash by getting Cano a 10-year, $240 million contract with the Seattle Mariners. And for Diggins, the agency has helped her stand out from a high-profile draft class that included Brittney Griner and Elena Delle Donne to become one of the most marketable female athletes in the country.

“With us it was more about looking at on the court and off the court,” Perez said. “We just asked her the question ‘what do you want off the court?’ and she was like ‘I want to be in TV and modeling and I want to do a whole bunch of different stuff.’

“And we are just making her dreams come true – she’s everywhere now.”

Everywhere, except where most other WNBA players are right now. The WNBA may be women’s basketball’s most high-profile league, but for most, the real money comes from playing in leagues in Russia, China and other countries. Candace Parker, for example, reportedly makes around $1.2 million to play in Russia during the WNBA offseason. Her maximum WNBA contract, by contrast, is around $105,000.

Diggins and Roc Nation instead decided that in her first offseason she would stay in the United States. And instead of making money through foreign teams, she’s gotten endorsement deals with Sprint and Nike, including her own headband line, among other brands.

While Perez declined to say how much money those endorsement deals were worth, he said they earned Diggins far more than if she had gone overseas.

“We decided what was best for her was to build her brand the first year,” said Perez.

In her offseason, Diggins has done a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue shoot, appeared in Vogue, posted on Twitter about outings at nightclubs with friends and gotten to spend more time with her friends and family than many women’s basketball players who go overseas. While playing overseas has its perks – the money, the competition and the experience – many players have complained about the hectic schedules, isolation and injuries from overuse.

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In addition to racking up endorsements and magazine articles, Diggins has also had time to focus on some of her philanthropic efforts. Last week she participated in a field day at the Martin Luther King Recreation Center in South Bend, Ind., a place where she grew up and her dad is center’s director. Diggins said she was thrilled to go back to and talk to kids about eating healthier and exercising more.

“Obviously when I was in high school I could eat whatever I wanted to, but I think your body is an ATM machine,” she said. “You get out what you put into it. For me I’ve really honed in on eating healthy as I continue to get older and I wish I had programs that taught me about it at an earlier age.”

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She’s also still working on her basketball game. Diggins said she coordinates everything around her workouts and is a part of the U.S. Women’s National Team player pool.

It’s a business model that might only work because of the people involved – Diggins was one of the most popular and successful players in college basketball. She had a solid rookie season with the Shock, averaging 8.5 points and 3.8 assists and she’s an athlete whose goals seem to be focused on first being a great basketball player, and then becoming a healthy living advocate and TV personality. But her success also might be one of Roc Nation Sports’ bigger success stories: Turning a WNBA player into a marketing machine.

“I think it’s so important to have something to fall back on,” she said of her offseason experience. “I have a business degree so I wanted to put that to work.”

And maybe have a bit of fun along the way.

“I’m young,” she said. “And I really want to enjoy it while it’s here.”