As the game kicks off in Levi’s, many fans rush into their seats and get ready to watch the game. For 49ers team reporter Lindsey Pallares though, her day started hours before kickoff, and won’t finish by the time the stadium is empty.

Pallares’s day starts 4.5 hours prior to kickoff. She grabs her credentials and does audio checks and rehearses for the interview she’ll conduct a few hours later. She then heads to the press box, which serves as home base for the majority of the day.

The press box houses the journalists during the game. Unlike the fan seating though, the atmosphere of the press box stays strictly professional. “Press boxes are working environments.” Pallares said. “No one’s going there to be a fan.” This results in the press box not having many emotional moments or even any cheering.

In the press box, Pallares preps for the game by writing out templates for articles she’ll publish after the game and check with the team to publish their list of inactive players.

After publishing the inactives, Pallares heads back down to the field to watch warm-ups and check in with her pre-game interview guest. These guests are all usually 49ers alumni, with legends dating back to the 70s.

An especially notable pre-game interview for her came in the 2024 NFC Championship game with Joe Montana. “He’s the goat, so it’s hard not to be in awe.” Pallares said. Joe Cool was all that he lived up to according to Pallares, providing great answers and hyping up the crowd before the game. All in all, it made it her favorite interview of her career.

After taking some footage of the stadium and/or going on Instagram Live, she sets and conducts the pregame interview and heads back up. Before doing so though, she makes sure to take and appreciate all that’s happening around her. She heads to the tunnel to watch player intros before kickoff.

From there, her job is to watch the game, writing a post-game recap along the way. In the rare instance of a record being broken, or a major injury, she’ll quickly write an article at halftime.

If the game ends in a Niners win, she interviews one of the standout players of the game right on the field, then publishes the recap she worked on during the game.

After the dust is settled, she heads to post-game press conferences, asking questions and gathering quotes for other articles she writes about the game. She also wraps up publishing of any other piece of media for the game.

Pallares’s game day routine has held strong for years with the 49ers, and has taken her through some unbelievable games, including the Super Bowl. Her favorite game though is one that comes as no surprise. “The NFC Championship game was really cool.” Pallares said. “The emotions are all going up here [as she points to her head], even though you can’t outwardly express them in the press box.” That game featured the 49ers coming back down 17, tying the record for the largest comeback in NFC Championship history. The comeback started early in the 3rd quarter, with Brandon Aiyuk making a miracle catch near the end zone, (which Pallares calls the ladybug catch). That play gave Pallares all the confidence in the world. “After that I told myself the niners are going to pull this off,” she said. “There’s no way that play happens and this doesn’t end in a Super Bowl berth.”

It’s games like these where Pallares experiences what she calls, “pinch me moments,” where she’s forced to step back and take in the gravity of these games. Super Bowl 58 marked a decade since she had last covered a Super Bowl. Understanding how rare these situations are, she says that she “always tries to be very grateful for these opportunities.”

Opportunity can also come in the opposite way, as the 49ers struggled this season following their Super Bowl loss. Pallares was forced to adapt, and focus on things outside of the games. She wrote many stories about the players themselves including an article about George Kittle meeting up with his childhood friend in Green Bay.

In the heat of the NFL offseason, Pallares and the Niners media team finds themselves back in the thick of things, with tons of player interviews and media coverage for the Niners’ selections in the NFL Draft. With a whopping 11 selections over the course of 3 days, Pallares describes the process as “fun and chaotic,” much like every other part of the NFL season.