paralympic games

The Warner Bros. Ranch in Burbank will serve as broadcast headquarters during the Los Angeles Olympics and Paralympic Games in two years.

LA28 and Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday jointly announced that the 30-acre Hollywood Way campus would play a pivotal role in the Games. Constructing an efficient TV nerve center — the operational hub where feeds from events are produced, then distributed to hundreds of millions of viewers around the world — has long been a crucial component to staging such an ambitious television extravaganza.

Over the last few months, LA28 executives and the Olympic Broadcasting Services team narrowed their search to the Ranch. The facility, which recently underwent a $300 million transformation with new soundstages, has the capacity and technical requirements to support the international broadcast center.

The International Olympics Committee approved the selection at a recent meeting.

“The facilities are near-perfect for them, both in size and in access,” Simon Robinson, Warner Bros. Discovery’s president of global experiences and studio operations, said in an interview with The Times. “As we sat down and talked it through with them, we were able to reach what we think is a great deal for both of us.”

Warner Bros. and LA28 declined to provide financial details of the arrangement, which will span nearly two years.

For Warner Bros., the decision came down to whether the studio needed the space for its own TV and film productions or if it was advantageous to turn over the facility, which boasts 16 soundstages and a five-story creative office building, to LA28.

Work to prepare the campus for the Olympics will begin in January.

LA28 plans to use nearly all of the soundstages, which are equipped with dedicated set lighting power, high-capacity silent air conditioning, high-speed wired and wireless internet, and adjoining production suites. There’s also a mill — a 40,000-square foot workshop space — a cafe, plenty of parking and quick access to area freeways.

“We look forward to welcoming the global broadcast community to Los Angeles in 2028,” Shana Ferguson, LA28’s chief of sport and games delivery officer, said in a statement.

No Warner Bros. production will be displaced, Robinson said. Three shows that currently use the complex — the HBO productions “Rooster” and “I Love LA,” and “I Suck at Girls” for Netflix, will be wrapped by the time LA28 moves in next year.

“Everything fell into place nicely,” Robinson said.

The Ranch outpost is rich in Hollywood history — a go-to site to shoot old westerns. Columbia Pictures owned the lot for years, before bringing in Warner Bros. as a partner in the 1970s.

It was later used for filming such classic TV series as “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Jeannie” and the movie “Lethal Weapon.” Opening credits of Warner Bros.’ 1990s sitcom “Friends,” featured the then 20-something cast members frolicking in a fountain near the center of the lot. (The fountain was moved to the main Warner Bros. lot, where it has become a featured part of the studio tour.)

The LAPD is considering whether to shut down its police academy for part of 2028 in order to put hundreds of officers back to work on the streets in time for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, according to four department sources.

The sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss internal matters, said the proposal was floated at a senior staff meeting last week. The idea has sparked debate, the sources said, with some officials worried that a pause would set back the department’s efforts to hire more police officers and replenish its dwindling ranks.

The LAPD declined to make any official available for an interview about the proposal. In response to an inquiry from The Times, the department released a short statement that said: “The Olympic Games are two years away. The LAPD will be prepared as always to keep the citizens and visitors of Los Angeles safe. We look forward to a memorable event.”

Much could still change between now and the start of the Olympics. The size of recruit classes are dictated by the department’s annual budget, which is approved by the City Council before each fiscal year.

Recently, the council signed off on a $15-billion city budget for 2026-27, preserving Mayor Karen Bass’ plan to hire 510 officers — only enough cops to replace those who are expected to leave over the next fiscal year.

It’s not uncommon during large events for the department to mobilize officers from specialized units and others who don’t normally work in the field. But the potential cancellation of more than half of the 13 academy classes that the LAPD typically graduates in a given year came as a surprise to some.

Under the proposal, the academy could cease operations for roughly seven months after the January 2028 class, which would let the department temporarily reassign more than 300 officers from its training division. These include instructors who would normally be spending their days teaching the basics of how to handle firearms, pull over speeding motorists, collect evidence at a crime scene and interview victims and suspects.

Sources said the proposed plan calls for increasing academy class sizes before and after the Olympics and Paralympics in order to offset resignations and retirements.

The plan has still been met with deep skepticism in some quarters, with officials pointing to the department’s well-documented recruitment struggles in recent years. Any interruptions in recruiting officers could set the department back, the skeptics argue.

L.A. City Councilmember Tim McOsker said he understood the need for the department to continue its recruitment efforts, but said that putting training officers back to the field felt like a necessary “sacrifice to be able to host the Olympics.”

Late last month, L.A. officials reached a tentative deal with Olympic organizers laying out the process for reimbursing the city for potentially hundreds of millions of dollars for public services, ranging from traffic control to trash pickup. But the question of how the city will pay for police protection remains largely unsettled.

The costs could theoretically be covered by the $1 billion in funding the federal government has allocated for the Games’ costs. However, some elected officials have expressed concern that the money might not materialize once the Games are over. Another funding option is a $270-million contingency fund maintained by LA28 that can be distributed as a surplus if the Games make money or be used to cover any losses in the event of a shortfall.

For months, LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell has warned that public safety will suffer if the city doesn’t hire more officers to not only safeguard Olympic venues, but also continue normal operations over the 66 days between the July 14 start of the Olympic Games and the end of the Paralympic Games. At a budget hearing last year, McDonnell called on the council to fund new hires — while arguing against creating any delays in recruiting and on-boarding more officers.

Some City Council members have pushed back, saying overspending at the LAPD could force city leaders to contemplate cuts to other city jobs, which they oppose.

The Olympics will also be staffed by thousands of officers from agencies from across the state. A bill currently under consideration in the California Legislature would pave the way for the hundreds of officers from other states to help police the 2028 Games. The proposed legislation is opposed by the Peace Officers Research Association of California, the state’s largest law enforcement labor organization, which has argued that bringing in officers who don’t meet statewide training standards could spell disaster.