<Tr> <Td> 1985 </Td> <Td> A planned All Black tour of South Africa was stopped by the New Zealand High Court . A rebel tour took place the next year by a team known as the Cavaliers . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> A World XV sanctioned by the International Rugby Board went on a mini-tour of South Africa . All traditional rugby nations bar New Zealand supplied players to the team with ten Welshmen, eight Frenchmen, six Australians, four Englishmen, one Scot and one Irishman . </Td> </Tr> <P> On 26 August 1995, the International Rugby Board declared rugby union an "open" game and thus removed all restrictions on payments or benefits to those connected with the game . It did this because of a committee conclusion that to do so was the only way to end the hypocrisy of shamateurism and to keep control of rugby union . </P> <P> The threat to amateur rugby union was especially large in Australia where Super League was threatening to entice players to rugby league with large salaries . SANZAR was formed in 1995 by the New Zealand, Australian and South African Rugby Unions to try to counter the Super League threat . SANZAR proposed a provincial competition with teams from all three countries . This competition became the Super 12 and later the Super 14 before adopting its current identity as Super Rugby . The SANZAR proposals also included an annual competition between each country's Test teams, the Tri Nations Series . They were eventually able to get backing for the competition from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, with a contract totalling $US 550 million for ten years of exclusive TV and radio broadcasting rights . The deal was signed during the 1995 Rugby World Cup and revealed at a press conference on the eve of World Cup final . </P>

When did rugby union become a professional sport