Take a pinch of Patrick Mahomes, a dash of Lamar Jackson, add some Taylor Swift sizzle and you’ve got one hell of a finish.

What’s that formula? The most-watched NFL Kickoff Game of all time.

The Kansas City Chiefs’ thrilling 27-20 win over the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night averaged 28.9 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, based on live plus same-day adjusted fast-paced national games from Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics. The game outpaced the viewership for last year’s season opener (27.5 million for Detroit Lions-Chiefs) by five percent.

NBC said the game peaked at 33 million viewers in the second quarter (between 9:30 and 9:45 p.m. ET). The Lightning delayed kickoff until 8:40 p.m. ET, which likely hurt viewership given the game’s late conclusion at 11:55 p.m. ET.

According to NBC, the program drew 4.6 million viewers across its digital platforms, a 65 percent increase over last year’s NFL Kickoff Game (2.8 million viewers).

The three most popular markets for the match (based on 44 available markets) were Kansas City, Baltimore and Denver.

Required reading

(Photo: Scott Winters/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)