Answer by taking a quote from the following article:

Bill Veeck was born on February 9, 1914, in Chicago, Illinois. While Veeck was growing up in Hinsdale, Illinois, his father, William Veeck Sr., became president of the Chicago Cubs. Veeck Sr. was a local sports writer who wrote several columns about how he would have run the Cubs differently, and the team's owner, William Wrigley Jr., took him up on it. While growing up, the younger Veeck worked as a popcorn vendor for the Cubs.

Veeck had been a fan of the Negro Leagues since his early teens. He had also admired Abe Saperstein's Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, which was based in Chicago. Saperstein saved Veeck from financial disaster early on in Milwaukee by giving him the right to promote the Globetrotters in the upper Midwest in the winter of 1941-42. In the fall of 1942, Veeck met with Gerry Nugent, president of the Philadelphia Phillies, to discuss the possibility of buying the struggling National League team. He later wrote in his memoirs that he intended to buy the Phillies and stock the team's roster with stars from the Negro Leagues. Veeck quickly secured financing to buy the Phillies, and agreed in principle to buy the team from Nugent. While on his way to Philadelphia to close on the purchase, Veeck decided to alert MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis of his intentions. Although Veeck knew Landis was an ardent segregationist, he did not believe Landis would dare say black players were unwelcome while blacks were fighting in World War II. By the time he arrived in Philadelphia, Veeck discovered the Phillies had been officially taken over by the National League and that a new owner was being sought (the Phillies were ultimately sold to lumber baron William D. Cox). The authors of a controversial article in the 1998 issue of SABR's The National Pastime argued that Veeck invented the story of buying the Phillies and filling their roster with Negro leaguers, claiming Philadelphia's black press made no mention of a prospective sale to Veeck. Subsequently, the article was strongly challenged by the late historian Jules Tygiel, who refuted it point-by-point in an article in the 2006 issue of SABR's The Baseball Research Journal, and in an appendix, entitled "Did Bill Veeck Lie About His Plan to Purchase the '43 Phillies?", published in Paul Dickson's biography, Bill Veeck: Baseball's Greatest Maverick. Joseph Thomas Moore wrote in his biography of Doby, "Bill Veeck planned to buy the Philadelphia Phillies with the as yet unannounced intention of breaking that color line."

Was Veeck a sportsfan?
He had also admired Abe Saperstein's Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, which was based in Chicago.