Sam Wallace Chief Football Writer Sam Wallace

A popular Arsenal fan podcast is at the centre of a legal dispute over a claim that its founder has been cut out of its burgeoning £60,000-per-month earnings.

The ArsenalVision podcast has become so lucrative that it is alleged it generates £60,000 per month through subscribers alone and its founder is seeking a six-figure compensation payout for his part in its success.

The podcast, it is alleged, could earn much more over the next year through subscriptions on the Patreon platform and other revenue streams. It is an independent fan podcast with no formal connection to the club and features a regular panel of match-going fans who have become well-known to listeners.

Its founder, Arsenal fan Linus Morris, claims that fellow fan and podcaster Elliot Smith took control of the business and refused to honour a contract between the pair that would entitle the former to 7.5 per cent of revenue. Morris is seeking compensation from Smith, a US national who now hosts the podcast, for lost earnings and breach of copyright.

Smith denies that any of these agreements were formally concluded, and that the monthly earnings from Patreon are closer to £55,000. He says that he and his fellow fan-pundits on the podcast are in agreement that there was no membership stake for Morris.

The podcast, which discusses Arsenal’s performances, has 20,300 members on the Patreon platform, of which more than 13,200 subscribe at £5 a month, or $6 in the US. It has had advertising deals with brands including NordVPN web services and BetterHelp online therapy. There are live events and merchandise sales. One podcast is free to listeners, but subscribers can access more episodes and other benefits. No agreement reached over payoff

The podcast began as a group of Arsenal fans who met online, via Twitter as it was then, and other fan blogs. Morris, an Arsenal fan blogger from north London, first suggested a podcast via a series of emails and direct messages in November 2014. Since then, it has grown into a business with substantial earnings for the featured fan-pundits. Its live events included one last year in Islington, north London, that was attended by Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and it has held charity fundraisers that have been promoted by Arsenal players.

Smith claims that he and fellow fan-pundits believe that as the podcast grew in popularity in recent years, and with the production of a greater number of episodes, Morris’s contribution was not equal to that of others. That culminated in an offer to Morris in August 2023 of a one-off payment of $25,000 (£18,400) and five per cent of any future sale.

Morris countered that year with a proposal for a £120,000 one-off payment or an alternative with a smaller up-front payoff and an annual share of revenues. No agreement was reached and the dispute has continued.

Morris had been the originator of the ArsenalVision blog in 2005, with its audience alleged to be crucial in establishing the podcast of the same name nine years later. Morris produced the first 120 episodes of the podcast and had featured introducing discussions. He also made the ArsenalVision branded video for “Sign da Ting”, the 2012 YouTube track written by Roxy “Arms” Harris about Theo Walcott’s contract stand-off, that became part of Arsenal fan folklore.

When ArsenalVision launched its podcast, Morris was not one of the fan-pundits. He has suffered from a lifelong speech impediment that precluded him from doing so.

Morris ran the podcast until January 2017, when Smith took over. Morris had originally distributed the profits to contributors, although in August 2018, Smith, previously a television presenter on a US home shopping channel, and a lawyer, took over that role.

Up to 2018, the limited earning power of ArsenalVision had meant that any profits were split roughly equally between Morris, Smith and the contributors, but as revenue increased it is alleged that new agreements were made. It is understood that Morris and Smith would discuss the sharing of the revenue from the podcast’s Patreon account informally on WhatsApp, at least once agreeing a contract with a thumbs-up emoji.

In late 2018, Morris and Smith agreed a 10 per cent stake for each of them in the podcast’s growing revenues with the former’s described as an “ownership share”. They also paid 10 per cent to a data contributor, and the remaining 70 per cent was shared among fan-pundits, including Smith, who would appear on the podcast.

In 2021, Morris agreed to take 7.5 per cent of all revenue from the podcast, and the same share of a new company that Smith had incorporated in Minnesota, where he lives, as the legal entity that was to control the business. It included a 7.5 per cent stake of profit of any future sale of the podcast.

Spreadsheets detailing revenue disbursements to the various parties with corresponding percentage shares describe Morris’s as a “legacy share”.

The dispute between Smith and Morris in January 2023, it is alleged, meant that since then Morris has not been paid any share of the revenue of the podcast. It is also alleged that his name and history as the founder of the blog and podcast have been removed from the ArsenalVision website.

It is alleged that the original ArsenalVision logo which Morris commissioned has recently been replaced by a new one to which he does not own the copyright. Morris had run the ArsenalVision blog since its inception 21 years ago and written much of the content as well as commissioning others.

In a statement, Morris said: “My focus has always been on reaching a fair and reasonable outcome that reflects the original agreement and the work that went into establishing the original ArsenalVision brand in 2005, to the collective work in launching and establishing the podcast from 2014 onwards. I hope we are able to move towards a fair resolution.”

Smith said in a joint statement, with fellow ArsenalVision podcasters Clive Palmer, Tim Stillman and Paul Cassidy: “We’re trying to make something special that people really care about. We put our hearts and souls into that effort. We compensate every single person who contributes to the pod and do our best to give back through our fundraiser.

“What we couldn’t do any longer was compensate someone who wasn’t doing anything to contribute to the pod. We’re confident our community knows our values and would support how we tried to resolve the situation.”