Idaho Ollyball Inventor Joe Burke Appearing on Shark Tank

If you’re a parent, there are certain things you’ve probably said a few thousand times.

Clean your room, put your shoes on and for the love of everything holy, quit playing ball in the house!

Joe Burke said that last one plenty of times, too. The difference is, eventually the Idaho inventor decided maybe the kids weren’t the problem, maybe it was the ball.

It Started With a Plate of Spaghetti

Joe told me the story behind Ollyball, the incredibly lightweight indoor ball that’s now sold around the world.

It started about a decade ago when his oldest daughter was eight years old and loved playing ball inside the house. Joe and his wife wanted to encourage their kids to be active, but as any parent knows, a volleyball and your living room aren’t always a great combination.

Then came the spaghetti. His daughter hit a plate of spaghetti while playing in the house. Frustrated, Joe threw the ball into the backyard. Then he looked back and saw his daughter standing in the kitchen crying.

Instead of saying, “See? I told you not to play ball in the house,” Joe had another thought. “Okay, why don’t we just make a ball you can play with in the house? How come nobody’s done this yet?”

That question turned into something of an obsession.

About 100 Prototypes Later…

Joe estimates he and his daughter went through about 100 different prototypes.

At the time, this wasn’t supposed to become his career. Joe had a full-time job. His wife was a professor working in special education. Boxes of different materials just kept showing up at their house while Joe tinkered, tested and tried again.

Joe would take prototypes with him when he went to the gym. He’d drop his kids off at the kids’ club and leave one of his creations behind to see what happened.

Eventually he brought in the 12-inch version and the kids started fighting over it. That’s when he knew.

Ollyball uses patented shock-absorbing KrunchCOR construction and weighs less than an ounce, allowing kids to hit, kick and throw it indoors without the impact of a traditional ball. Kids can even color the outside with markers or crayons.

The idea worked. Ollyball went on to win the Rookie of the Year category at the Toy Association’s 2019 Toy of the Year Awards and has since collected numerous other U.S. and international honors.

Why Shark Tank? And Why Now?

Joe told me producers from Shark Tank had approached him twice before. Both times, he passed.

“I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right,” he remembers thinking after one of those approaches.

But Joe had also created a 10-year roadmap for the company. The idea was to take Ollyball from something inspired by his daughter breaking things in the house to something that, as he puts it, could “leave the world a better place than we found it.”

And there was something very specific on that roadmap for 2026. Find a partner, so when Shark Tank came calling again, Joe decided the timing finally made sense.

But he had one condition. “As long as my son and I can appear together, I’ll do it.”

Father and Son Head From Idaho Into the Shark Tank

Joe’s son is just 11 years old, but all three of the Burke kids have been involved with the family business in some way over the years.

So father and son prepared together and I mean everywhere. They practiced their pitch in airports. They practiced it in grocery stores. They visualized what walking into the Tank would feel like, what questions the Sharks might ask and how they would respond.

But Joe told his son something else before they went. “Even if we don’t do a deal, I want this to be a special time.”

I love that.

We obviously don’t know yet whether Joe and his son walked away with a Shark or what happened once those questions started flying. Joe is under a confidentiality agreement and wasn’t about to let me get him in trouble with ABC.

But he did say the experience was incredible. After filming at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, father and son turned the trip into an adventure of their own, including feeding his son’s love of roller coasters.

Whatever happened inside the Tank, that’s a pretty great memory for a dad and his 11-year-old kid.

An Idaho Business Goes National

This also isn’t your typical Shark Tank story about someone walking into the room with a homemade prototype and hoping somebody will take a chance on it.

Ollyball is already an established product. It’s sold through major retailers, has expanded internationally and has a growing lineup of indoor sports products. In 2025, the company launched its Full-Force Indoor Sports line nationwide at DICK’S Sporting Goods.

But when I asked Joe where someone here in the Treasure Valley should buy an Ollyball, his first answer wasn’t Amazon, it wasn’t Target or Walmart.

“Go to Toy Town in Meridian.”

Joe said the company has been a longtime supporter of independent toy stores, and he specifically mentioned his relationship with Toy Town. He also pointed to Leap Years, where kids can play with Ollyballs at their child centers.

That local connection seems fitting for a product whose whole story started with one dad, one daughter and one unfortunate plate of spaghetti.

Joe summed up what matters most to him pretty simply.

“Bring joy to parents and kids.”

Next Wednesday, the rest of the country gets to see where that mission takes him next. Joe Burke, his son Jameson and Ollyball will appear on Shark Tank Wednesday, September 30, on ABC. ABC has confirmed Ollyball as one of the products featured during the “Favorite Daughters” episode.

Joe already knows what happened, the rest of us will just have to watch.

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Gallery Credit: Stephen Lenz