The World Cup in Australia and New Zealand was no doubt the centrepiece to an astounding period for women's sport.

Not only did the culture-shifting event deliver record crowds, viewership, sponsorship and prize money at the biggest-ever tournament, but there was even progress in its ugliest moment - when Spanish football boss Luis Rubiales forcibly kissed Jenni Hermoso at the World Cup final trophy presentation.

In 2023, such inappropriate - and globally televised - behaviour was not tolerated.

The Spanish World Cup-winning squad vowed to boycott their national team if Rubiales wasn't punted, as media commentators joined the chorus condemning his actions.

Despite a defiant initial response normalising the incident, Rubiales eventually apologised and was banned from all football activities for three years.

"The World Cup changed the conversation," ethics, integrity and equality expert at the University of Canberra, Catherine Ordway said.

"It'll be interesting to see how it plays out at the Paris Olympics because Australian women always out-perform men in medals.

"There's parity in male and female Olympic athletes, but we aren't seeing that in sport officials, broadcast staff and sporting organisations.

"That's not good and is it something still in the culture that suggests a woman's place is not in sport? Probably. But I do think the Women's World Cup was a major conversation-shifter."

"I hope it's not just me being optimistic, but I do feel like we can't go back from that," she added.

There were other signs of the times a-changing during the World Cup, such as the outrage over Nike failing to stock the kit of England goalkeeper Mary Earps.

After widespread criticism, and nearly 200,000 signatures on a petition for Nike to sell all Women's World Cup 'keeper kits, the company finally gave in. Earps' jersey was released for sale in October and sold out almost as soon as they became available.

Elsewhere in women's sport, rugby league, Australian Rules, rugby union, netball, cricket and soccer sealed record pay deals to reward and support top athletes like never before, and similar achievements were made internationally.

The significance of the rise of women's sport was visible outside the professional ranks too as participation numbers continue to increase across multiple codes.

The appetite for women's sport has clearly grown with attendance figures and membership sales also on the up. The biggest example of this was the 92,000 that watched a US college volleyball match in August - the largest ever crowd for women's sport.

Some issues do remain though, with Ordway pointing out greater popularity and social media following of women athletes brings a "disturbing global trend" of online abuse.

"UC and Sport Integrity Australia are funding an 18-month research project to work out the best practices for cyber safety for women, to share learnings to national sporting organisations," Ordway said.

Former Capitals basketball coach Carrie Graf said the Matildas put a "massive spotlight" on women's sport, but there's still room to grow further.

"What's shifted is key decision-makers realised people will watch women's sport, and there's an economy to be built around it," the UC director of sport said. "It's heading in the right direction and people need to keep showing their support.

"Critically what's missing is purpose-built infrastructure for women's sport high performance facilities that are not as well-funded as in men's codes. That's the next big thing that needs government and private investment.

"We need to maintain pressure on all the codes promoting the women's side of their game. From a purely business perspective, there's a bit of an untapped market there still."